


but 'tis my heart that loves what they despise

by mnemosyne_musings



Series: i do love nothing in the world so well as you [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Human AU, Humor, Romance, but they don't realise, kind of but they actually just secretly fancy each other, they are idiots in love, university professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24756226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne_musings/pseuds/mnemosyne_musings
Summary: River looked up at Jack indignantly. “He has not got my knickers in a twist thank you,” she retorted, “He’s just another arrogant, badly-dressed, smart-mouthed, Oxford academic know-it-all who’s not half as clever as he thinks he is. He seems to have a dislike for archaeology and I’ve had the misfortune to run into him twice in twenty-four hours.”“Hmm,” Jack raised an eyebrow at her with a knowing smirk, “Well, that doesn’t sound at all like your type does it?!”
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song
Series: i do love nothing in the world so well as you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995610
Comments: 114
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have not abandoned my other WIP that is almost finished but this has been distracting me all week so I just needed to put it out there.
> 
> Couple of things.  
> \- set in Oxford, some of the places are real, some I have made up.  
> \- colleges in Oxford are where students live and do some of their studying but they do most stuyding in their department or faculty. They are made up of students from all subjects and years and they have academics who are attached to these colleges who do some of their teaching and pastoral care there as well.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, I haven't written human AU before but this was fun!  
> Point for every canon reference you spot!

### For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”

_Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing. Act 5, scene 2)_

\--

_Physics Dept, Oxford University_

Taking a deep breath, John Smith paused outside the main entrance to the physics department. He straightened his bow-tie, stood up a little taller and then strode into the building. He signed in at the reception desk and then made his way up the stairs to the first-floor office as he’d been told. He took in the familiar smell of academic buildings – that combination of books and chemicals that seemed to pervade all working laboratories. The physics building at Oxford was a little grander than some of the ones he’d worked in before although there was still a comforting slight air of shabbiness that hung around the place. He found the office he was looking for and knocked on the door.

He’d done his PhD in physics some years ago but then had mostly been travelling for the past few years although he had interspersed that with some stints in various laboratories around the world. He’d never seen any particular reason to settle down in any one place for a while and had just enjoyed a slightly nomadic life. A friend of his had then contacted him recently to say there was a vacancy going in the physics department at Oxford and would he be interested in filling the post for a few months. At the time, he’d been kicking his heels in Morocco without much to do so had decided on a whim to come back to the UK for a little while.

He shook himself from his reverie as a woman a few years older than him opened the door and welcomed him in. Half an hour later, he’d had a whirlwind tour of the building and was back where he’d started.

“So that’s the tour of the labs finished Dr Smith, I’ll just show you where the new coffee room is,”

“Brilliant!” John clapped his hands together enthusiastically, “Thank you Lauren!” Turning round sharply on his heel, he followed the lab manager as she strode off down the corridor, he then frowned as she led them towards the end of the building and then through a makeshift corridor into the adjoining building.

“But this isn’t the physics building?” he said, looking around in confusion.

“Ah yes, our coffee room is temporarily out of order,” she explained apologetically, “There was a bit of an accident last term. Your predecessor Joan; wonderful woman, brilliant physicist, but a bit of a… a loose canon when it came to experiments outside the lab shall we say.”

Ah,” John nodded, biting his lip and making a mental note to keep silent about his previous record of accidentally setting things on fire when doing ‘home improvements’.

He followed her up the stairs and into the first room on the left. There were a dozen or so chairs around the room, a few low tables covered in journals and what looked like a small kitchenette off to one side.

“Have a seat,” Lauren gestured towards the chairs, “Would you like a coffee? We can go through some of the health and safety protocols here and then that’s your induction finished.”

“Ooh comfy chairs,” John mumbled to himself with a grin as he settled himself down in one of the armchairs, “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

“Milk?”

“Yes please… and two sugars,” he called, reaching out to sift through the journals on the table in front of him, “Urgh,” he exclaimed, looking at the titles, “Archaeology journals, who on earth reads this rubbish?”

“Well, this _is_ the archaeology building,” she called back from the kitchen, sounding slightly apologetic for some reason, “They are kindly letting us share their coffee room while ours is refurbished.”

“You didn’t tell me _that_ ,” John sighed as he dropped one of the journals in distaste, “Who agreed to share a coffee room with a load of tedious, grave-robbing, overblown sand-diggers.”

He sat back dramatically in his chair with a sigh and then suddenly jumped as he looked up to see a woman standing just a few feet from his chair.

“Oh…sorry I didn’t…hello,” he stuttered, staring at her before jumping to his feet and holding out his hand, “John Smith, I’m one of the new physics lecturers.”

He held out his hand awkwardly as she ignored it and just stared at him for a moment. She wasn’t just any woman, he suddenly realised, his mouth going slightly dry. She was stunning. Her hair was curly but was mostly pinned up, with just a few tendrils escaping and John was overcome with a sudden mad desire to see it all loose and wild. She was wearing a pencil skirt, heels and a shirt that definitely didn’t make him want to stare at that part of her body. He was brought rapidly back down to earth however by the furious expression on her face as she glared at him.

He swallowed nervously as she looked down at his hand and back up again. “I said I’m errr….”

“I heard you,” she snapped suddenly, “I might be a tedious overblown grave-robber but I’m not deaf.”

He winced suddenly as he realised just exactly how his words might have sounded. “Oh…so you’re an…”

“Dr River Song, archaeologist,” she glared at him again, “And you’re standing on my papers.”

He looked down at his feet where he was indeed standing on a sheaf of papers. Flushing bright red, he quickly bent down and hurriedly scooped them all up, handing them to her with an apologetic look.

She snatched them off him and then turned to pick up her mug of coffee from the side.

Running a hand awkwardly through his hair, he opened his mouth to apologise but before he could say anything, she gave him one final glare before marching out the room.

He sank down into his chair with a groan, closing his eyes briefly in frustration. “Brilliant Smith,” he muttered to himself, “Just brilliant.”

He opened his eyes to see Lauren standing in front of him, holding out a cup of tea, a sympathetic look on her face. “You’ve met Dr Song then.”

He winced as he accepted the cup of tea and nodded sheepishly.

“It’s a good thing looks don’t kill,” Lauren added as she took a seat opposite him, “You’d be dead on first sight otherwise.”

\---

_Wadham College, Oxford_

Sighing slightly in relief, River opened the door to her college, calling a greeting to the porter as she did so. There was always a small delight in escaping the bustling, tourist-heavy rush of one of the main roads in Oxford behind the grand and imposing walls of the college. She’d been at Oxford for five years now and had begun to think of it as home, in as much as anywhere had ever felt like home to her. Of course, it certainly wasn’t perfect as a place and as institutions went it could certainly do with dragging itself out of the nineteenth century at times. Still, River was doing her bit to help that and her work had been progressing fantastically, well on course for a professorship in the next few years. Well, it had been progressing brilliantly up until about a week ago.

She’d have to take small delights where she could get them at the moment she thought sourly. This week really couldn’t get much worse. She’d spent the past two months labouring over a big research proposal only to have it flat out rejected by the faculty council. She now faced the task of rewriting it while she was snowed under with marking for her grad students and then that idiot in the coffee room yesterday had thought nothing of blithely insulting her profession, just as she was trying to forget all about it. To top it all off, she now had to spend the entire of the afternoon in a tedious college meeting. At the last one of these she had attended, they had spent nearly two hours prevaricating over whether or not to chop down a single tree. In the end, River had faked a coughing fit to escape the room for a little while.

Grimacing to herself as she made her way across the courtyard and through a doorway to a smaller, enclosed quadrangle. Entering one of the staircases, she made her way up to the first floor and unlocked the door to her office. Pushing open the door with one hand, River dumped a load of papers on her desk before checking the time. Cursing under her breath, she hastily collected a couple of other papers off her desk before turning around again and heading out the door, shutting it firmly behind her. Grumbling to herself, she made her way quickly down the corridor and out into the courtyard.

Sighing heavily as she approached the meeting room, she closed her eyes for a moment before fixing a smile on her face and opening the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, quickly making her way to one of the few empty seats around a large table, “I got caught up after lectures.”

“That’s alright, River, we’ve only just started,” a middle-aged lady with short black hair smiled at her as River took a seat at the far end of the table. The Dean of the college, Florence Clarke, in charge of student welfare and access. A lovely woman but not one known for her brevity or decisiveness in meetings. “In fact, we were just doing introductions. We’ve got a new member,” she added as River leant forward to pour herself a glass of water, “This is Dr John Smith, he’s just joined the college.”

River sat back in her chair and glanced up to the other end of the table. She opened her mouth to say something and then froze. Sat at the other end of the table, looking slightly bashful, was that floppy-haired, bow-tie wearing _idiot_ that she’d had the misfortune to overhear insulting her yesterday. She stared at him for a moment, so caught up in her thoughts and unable to believe her bad luck that she almost missed the rest of what the Dean was saying.

“…he’s a member of the physics department and…”

“Yes,” River said shortly, glaring at him across the table, “We’ve met.”

“Oh,” the Dean said in surprise, as John had the grace to cringe slightly at that, “Well that’s lovely! Alright,” she beamed at everyone, “Now, we’re all here. Let’s get down to business. I hope you all have the agenda. It should have been circulated yesterday and the first item is…”

Sinking back into her chair with one final glare at John, River surreptitiously reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone under the table. Glancing down, she sent a brief message. “Drink later? Urgent need of alcohol…” Putting the phone away with a sigh, she picked up her glass and tried to tune back into the meeting, studiously avoiding looking at the other end of the table.

\--

_The King’s Arms, Oxford_

Turning back from the bar, River pushed her way through the other customers while holding aloft a bottle of wine, two glasses and a packet of dry-roasted peanuts. Spotting her companion in the far corner, she elbowed her way through the rest of the crowd before depositing her goods on the table.

“So?” Jack enquired as she poured them both a large glass of Rioja, “What’s the drama?”

Sitting back in her seat, River picked up her glass and took a deep sip before sighing appreciatively. “Drinking first,” she announced, “Drama later.”

A large glass of wine later, River had managed to forget most of her woes and was holding back tears of laughter as Jack regaled her with the tales of his latest foray into the dating scene.

“So then he said,” at this Jack adopted a posh English accent “’Oh but it’s alright, my Daddy pays for that.’ But I was like ‘Woah, your Dad still pays for stuff? I’m outta here!’”

Smacking Jack lightly on the arm, River laughed as she reached for her glass. “I’ve told you to stop hanging around with undergraduates!”

Winking at her as he drained the last of his wine, Jack just shrugged. “How can I help it? They’re just irresistibly attracted to me!” Pouring them both another glass, he elbowed her lightly, “So, are you gonna spill the beans about your terrible week.”

Sighing slightly as she picked up her glass, River shook her head. “Oh, it’s nothing really,” she murmured as she took a sip of her wine, “That grant proposal I told you about,” she carried on as Jack nodded, “That got rejected earlier this week.”

“Ahh, I’m sorry,” Jack said sympathetically, “I know you spent ages on that.”

River brushed off his concerns with a shrug, “It’s part of the business with academia, I’ll be fine. It’s just annoying.”

Jack looked at her shrewdly as she took another sip of her wine. “What else is there? Come on Song, I know you!”

Laughing softly, River shook her head. Jack really did know her a bit too well at times. She’d met him early on in her time at Oxford. He’d very drunkenly tried to chat her up in a bar and she’d turned him down rather abruptly. He’d been rather gracious about it given how inebriated he had seemed but then he’d come to her rescue later that evening when a slightly less gentlemanly suitor had tried to feel her up. Not that she couldn’t take care of herself but it had been nice to have some backup. Since then, they’d become fast friends. Jack was always there to pick her up after a bad day, console her after a terrible date or listen to her bitch about the ridiculous idiosyncrasies and absurd traditions of university life.

“Oh, just this guy being an arse,” she mumbled into her glass.

“Ooh,” Jack’s eyes lit up with interest, “A guy! Tell me more!”

“ _Not_ like that,” River wrinkled her nose slightly in distaste, “He’s just an idiot.”

“Why?” Jack frowned at her, “What did he do? Do I need to have stern words with him?”

River shook her head, “No, nothing like that. He’s one of the new lecturers at college. Looks about twelve but cocky as anything. Thinks the world of his own opinions and that we all need to be similarly enamoured of them.

Jack laughed as she glared into her glass. “I think that probably describes half the academic population of this town! You can usually deal with that sort pretty easily. Why’s this one got your knickers in a twist?”

River looked up at Jack indignantly. “He has not got my knickers in a twist thank you,” she retorted, “He’s just another arrogant, badly-dressed, smart-mouthed Oxford know-it-all who’s not half as clever as he thinks he is. He seems to have a dislike for archaeology and I’ve had the misfortune to run into him twice in twenty-four hours.”

“Hmm,” Jack raised an eyebrow at her with a knowing smirk, “Well, that doesn’t sound at _all_ like your type does it?!”

“What do you mean?” River protested with a glare.

Laughing, Jack picked up his glass. “That guy you dated on and off for ages, what was his name?” he pointed his glass at River who just raised an eyebrow at him, “You know, spiky hair… glasses…never shut up.”

“Oh him, David.”

“Yeah, him!” Jack said triumphantly, as he took a large swig of his wine “That sounds _exactly_ like him!”

“No, it doesn’t,” River huffed, crossing her arms defensively.

“Oh ho, it _so_ does,” Jack burst out laughing, “He even used to wear those terrible pin stripe suits and converse shoes remember?”

River just glared at him while uncrossing her arms to take another sip of wine.

“What happened to him again?”

“He moved to America last year,” River sighed softly, “He was offered a fellowship at Stanford.”

“Ah,” Jack nodded with a wistful sigh, “When did you last see him?”

River paused before giving him a sly smile. “I saw him at ASGARD over the summer.”

“ASGARD?” Jack quirked an eyebrow at her.

“American Society for Geo- and Astrophysical Research and Development,” River explained, “It was their annual conference in New York over the summer. I was over there anyway for some work. We met up for a picnic.”

“And then?” Jack asked pointedly as River grinned.

“Well,” she murmured coyly, raising the glass to her lips, “And then we had a _picnic_ if you know what I mean!”

“I’ll bet you did!” Jack winked back at her as she grinned at him.

As she took a sip of her wine, she glanced up at the bar and almost choked on her drink.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked in concern, as she hastily put the glass back down.

“It’s him,” she hissed, nodding at the bar.

“Who?” Jack asked, turning around to look.

“John Smith,” she muttered, as she watched him try and elbow his way out the crowded bar, carrying a tray with several drinks balanced on it, “Arrogant, archaeology-hating, know-it-all,” she added, glaring at him as he obliviously bumped into first one person and then another, the drinks wobbling precariously as he did so.

“Sorry, sorry,” he was muttering, his eyes fixed determinedly on the tray as he finally made his way to the other side of the room.

“Ohhh,” Jack whistled appreciatively, “You never said he was _hot!_ ”

River turned to stare at him in bemusement. “He is not _hot_ ,”

“Oh, he is,” Jack nodded approvingly, craning his neck to catch another glimpse of John as he triumphantly navigated the crowd without losing all of the drinks, “He’s cute!”

“He’s wearing tweed and a bow tie for crying out loud,” River shook her head in distaste.

Jack just shrugged, “Oh, so are half the guys in this town, it’s practically a uniform here.”

River simply snorted in disagreement.

“So,” Jack grinned at her and nudged her with his elbow, “A cute nemesis eh! That’s going to brighten up this term!”

\--

John dashed out the doors to the physics department, hastily pulling on his tweed jacket as he went. His first week at Oxford had passed in a blur of meetings, paperwork and inductions and now it was finally Friday lunchtime and he was late to meet his best friend for lunch.

“Amelia Pond!” he cried as he spotted her across the road, flinging his arms out in greeting as she rolled her eyes and waved back at him.

Glancing across to check the road was clear, he bounded over to her and swept her up into a big hug.

“Pond, I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you too, you daft man!” Amy grinned as she pulled back to look at him.

“How are _you_?” he said excitably, “How’s Oxford? How’s the Roman?”

Laughing, Amy swatted him gently on the arm, “He’s good, still nursing. Oxford’s great, we love it here.”

John glanced around briefly, looking up at the beautiful old college buildings that lined the street. “Yeah, it’s not bad here is it.”

Linking his arm with hers, Amy steered them gently back up in the other direction, towards a small café.

“I can’t believe you’re actually living here too,” she said with a smile as they wandered up the pavement, “So, tell me, how are you getting on? What’s life like on the other side of those colleges.”

Grinning, John looked down at her before launching into everything he’d been up to since he’s arrived in Oxford a week ago. Amelia, or Amy Pond had been his best friend since childhood along with Rory, her boyfriend. They’d grown up together, only becoming inseparable when John had left to go to university in America. Since then, he’d seen them whenever he was back from his travels. They’d moved to Oxford about a year ago. Amy had a job in publishing at the University Press and Rory was working at the local hospital as a nurse. When he’d been deliberating over whether or not to take this lectureship, he’d been partly swayed by the knowledge that they were also in Oxford.

An hour later, John sat back in his chair with a sigh. “I should probably get back to work.”

Amy glanced at her phone, wincing when she saw the time. “Ooh yeah, me too. I’ve got a meeting with my boss in an hour.”

John pulled out his wallet and phone, signalling for the bill. “So, when are you going to show me the sights of Oxford?”

“Why don’t you come over to ours this weekend,” she said, smiling up at the waitress as they paid, “Rory would love to see you.”

However, John didn’t reply, instead staring down at his phone in dismay.

“What’s the matter?” Amy asked in concern as he muttered under his breath and shook his head, “Is everything alright?”

“No,” he groaned dramatically before dropping his head briefly onto the table, “The universe hates me.”

“What are you talking about?” Amy frowned at him as he sat up and looked at his phone again, running a hand through his hair.

“That was an email from the college Dean,” he explained, “She wants me to collaborate on this project for the undergraduates, an access scheme type of thing.”

“Well what’s wrong with that?” Amy rolled her eyes at him, “You’re so dramatic sometimes.”

“It’s not _that_ ,” John gestured down at the phone frantically, “She wants me to collaborate with this…this _woman_!”

Amy burst out laughing at his indignant face.

“It’s not a laughing matter Pond!” he pointed a finger at her accusingly before staring morosely at his phone again, “This is the end of my life.”

Amy shook her head at him in bemusement. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with this woman?”

He shifted awkwardly in his chair for a moment before mumbling a reply. “Umm, I think she kind of hates me.”

“How can she hate you? You’ve only been here a week?”

Looking faintly embarrassed, John self-consciously straightened his lapels. “I might have accidentally insulted her career and profession in front of her.”

“You’re an idiot,” Amy declared, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair.

“Well, I wasn’t to know she was there!” he squeaked defensively, “Plus, I tried to apologise but she stormed off,” he added as Amy raised an eyebrow sceptically at him, “Anyway, I saw her again at this meeting and she wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.”

“She sounds very sensible,” Amy muttered pointedly.

“Rude,” he retorted, slumping back in her chair, “She seems totally objectionable anyway. Full of her own opinions, totally arrogant and far too much hair.”

“What on earth has her hair got to do with anything?” Amy laughed at him in disbelief.

“Oh, it’s all…” he muttered, gesturing vaguely around his head.

“You know what I think Raggedy-Man,” Amy said with a grin, using his old nickname from school, “I think you might have finally met your match. I cannot _wait_ to see how this one pans out!”

He huffed at that as they stood up to leave the café. He was going to email the Dean as soon as he got back to his office. It didn’t matter if he was just some new junior lecturer, there was no way on earth he was spending any more time than was absolutely necessary in the company of Dr River Song.

\---


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was starting to severely regret his decision to return to permanent academia at the moment. In fact, the holidays could not come soon enough. Maybe he’d go back to Morocco, or perhaps Argentina, or Borneo. Anywhere really, as long as it was nowhere near the vicinity of River Song...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and kudos! I'm so glad people are excited about this, I'm having lots of fun writing it so am glad people are enjoying it!

\---

A week later, John stomped down the stairs leading down to the main courtyard in college, wrestling on his tweed as fast as could.

“Infuriating, maddening, thinks she knows it all,” he muttered under his breath as he marched quickly across the courtyard, nodding at the porter as he opened the main college door slightly harder than usual before stomping out onto the pavement.

Turning left out the college doors, he headed towards the centre of town, continuing his muttered rant to himself as he did so. “Telling me what to do like I’m some ridiculous child. Who does she think she is eh? I’ll show her.”

He crossed over the road with barely a glance, ignoring the yelp from the cyclist who hastily swerved around him and headed to the bus stop. He was due at Amy and Rory’s for dinner and he’d planned a leisurely walk up to their house after work but now he’d have to rush and get the bus. They’d had their first meeting regarding the access project the Dean wanted him to be involved with. It had been going alright to begin with. Dr Song appeared content to simply ignore him for most of the meeting which had suited him fine. He’d piped up with various helpful suggestions now and then, some of which seemed to earn him a totally unmerited eye roll or withering stare from her. For the most part though, it had gone smoothly.

However, at the end they had been allocated partners in order to divide the work up more effectively. Clearly, he had offended some of the universe’s more vindictive deities recently as of course he had ended up paired with River Song. The only small crumb of comfort seemed to be that she found the prospect of working with him equally unappealing. They had both pleaded with the Dean but she had not relented.

Then he’d had to suffer the indignity of being talked at by said rude archaeologist before being summarily dismissed from the room when she said she needed ‘a word in private’ with the Dean. He muttered again under his breath about the cheek of it, ignoring the strange looks he was getting from other people as he slumped down crossly into a seat on the bus.

Staring out the window glumly, he pulled out his phone as it buzzed. He glanced down, scrolling through his emails and let out a groan of dismay.

One new email from Dr River Song.

Subject: Meeting in my department office 10am Friday.

_Don’t be late._

He glared at the screen in outrage. There was nothing else, no other message or indication about the content of the meeting. He stared at the screen for another moment or two before putting it back in his pocket, not bothering to send a reply. He slumped further down in his seat and crossed his arms in a huff. He was starting to severely regret his decision to return to permanent academia at the moment. In fact, the holidays could not come soon enough. Maybe he’d go back to Morocco, or perhaps Argentina, or Borneo. Anywhere really, as long as it was nowhere near the vicinity of River Song.

\--

He was late. He hadn’t meant to be late _deliberately_. But he had got distracted in the office and then got side-tracked chatting with one of the new lab techs and then he had to make a coffee and suddenly he was glancing at his watch and it was gone ten o’clock already.

Swearing under his breath, John hurried along the second-floor corridor of the archaeology department, trying to glance up at the various names on the office doors while not spilling his coffee at the same time.

Stopping at the right door, he paused, taking a deep breath before knocking on the door and pushing it open at the muffled ‘Come in’ from inside.

“You’re late,” River muttered before he had a chance to open his mouth, not bothering to even glance up at him.

John glared at the top of her head as she continued to stare at the paper in front of her rather than him. “I had… important things to do,” he managed lamely as she finally raised her head and gave him a withering stare.

“Clearly,” she muttered, glancing pointedly at his coffee mug that he was still clutching in one hand, “Well, don’t just stand there,” she snapped as he opened his mouth to retort something very witty, “I actually have things to do. Pull up a chair and let’s get this over with.”

Glaring mutinously at her, he moved towards the desk, intending to pull up the chair that was just off to one side of the desk. However, as he was doing so, something happened to his balance. When he replayed it over and over in his head later that day, he still couldn’t say for sure whether he tripped on the rug or whether he caught his foot on the chair or something else. Whatever it was though, in between moving towards the desk and trying to sit down he somehow lost his balance completely. Tripping forward, he managed to catch himself on the edge of the desk before he did himself any real damage. However, the contents of his coffee mug that he’d been cradling in his hand suddenly were no longer in the mug but instead were dripping all down the front of Dr River Song.

For a moment there was complete silence in the room.

John stared aghast at her as she stared in disbelief down at the front of her shirt. What had been a rather pristine, tailored white shirt was now completely soaked all down the front. She gasped slightly at the heat and pulled the material away from her skin so it wasn’t touching her.

“I…I’m so…” he tried to stammer as she looked up to fix him with a furious expression.

“Seriously?” she ground out from between gritted teeth, “Are you here to completely ruin my life?”

He pushed himself upright and looked frantically around the room for something to mop up the coffee with.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair as he whirled around. Not seeing anything, he shrugged out of his tweed jacket and offered it to her.

“What on earth am I supposed to do with that?” she asked cuttingly, staring down at it like he’d offered her a live ferret.

“You can use it to…” he gestured vaguely at her chest, “Mop up or… or cover it up or something.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, looking at him like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hit him or not. She took a deep breath before replying, her voice deadly and calm. “I have to give a lecture in less than an hour to the undergraduates,” she pointed to her ruined shirt that was now rapidly turning rather see-through, “I _cannot_ turn up looking like this and putting an absurd, oversized tweed jacket over the top is _not_ going to cut it.”

She glared at him for a moment longer before turning away, letting out a loud sigh as she rummaged through one of her desk drawers. “Oh, just my luck,” she groaned, closing her eyes in frustration, “I thought I had a spare top here. I must have taken it home.”

He stared at her for a moment before suddenly spinning on his heel and heading for the door.

“Where the hell are you going?” she spat as he grabbed the door handle.

“Wait there,” he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

He raced along the corridor, dodging various groups of people as he went, he took the stairs two at a time and headed back across into the physics department. He flew into his office, grabbed his bag and dumped it on the desk. Opening it, he quickly rummaged through it before triumphantly pulling out a clean shirt.

“Ah ha!” he grinned to himself, holding the shirt up and quickly giving it a sniff before nodding satisfactorily. He unceremoniously dumped the bag back on the floor before hastily retracing his footsteps.

He pushed open the door to River’s office without knocking and barged straight in. She was now standing up behind her desk, futilely trying to tidy up her stained shirt with some paper napkins.

“Here you go,” he thrust the shirt out to her as she stared at him.

“What?”

“It’s…well it’s a shirt,” he babbled, as she continued to stare at him without taking the clothing from his outstretched hand, “I know it won’t quite fit and I haven’t ironed it I’m afraid… but you could tuck it in…or not and I thought it might do better than the jacket.”

“You don’t need…”

“It’s clean,” he added nervously as she still made no move to take it from him, “I tend to always keep one. In case I spill things. Which does happen…as you can see…” he tailed off awkwardly.

She hesitated for a moment longer before shaking her head and taking it from him. “Fine, it will have to do,” she muttered reluctantly, holding up the shirt in front of her.

He grinned at her. “Excellent, I knew it would come in handy although I didn’t think it would be quite so… _what are you doing?”_ he suddenly squeaked as she started unbuttoning her shirt in front of him.

“I’m changing,” she snapped as he stared open-mouthed at her, “I’m covered in coffee in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Yes… I had but…” he stammered, suddenly clapping a hand over his eyes as she kept undoing the buttons and he suddenly got a tantalising glimpse of a lacy, champagne-coloured bra that covered...No! He wasn’t thinking about that. Wasn’t thinking about that at all.

“And turn around!” she added, glaring at him pointedly.

Feeling a blush cover his entire face, he spun around on the spot, keeping his eyes tightly closed and definitely not picturing a half-naked River Song standing just a few feet away from him in just her bra and trousers. He could hear her muttering as it sounded like she had discarded her shirt and was trying his on. He took a few deep breaths and started trying to do some complex physics equations in his head instead. Not for distraction of course, just to keep himself busy.

“Alright, you can turn around,” she muttered a few minutes later.

Tentatively, he opened his eyes and turned back around. Swallowing heavily, he tried to will the blush on his cheeks to subside slightly. He stared at her as she finished tucking in his shirt. She was wearing high-waisted black trousers which she’d tucked the shirt into. She’d rolled the sleeves up a little, turned the collar up slightly and she’d left a couple of buttons undone, drawing his attention to the necklace she was wearing; a pendant with a green stone set in silver.

“Oh… you look… that’s looks good,” he blurted out in surprise before he could stop himself.

She glanced up sharply then and opened her mouth to snap at him, obviously thinking he was joking, but stopped, seeing the sincere expression on his face.

“Well,” she sniffed, slightly mollified, “It will have to do for now.”

He shuffled awkwardly in front of the desk, picking up his tweed jacket where it had been discarded on the side.

After a moment, River gestured towards the chair. “Go on, sit,” she muttered irritably, “We might as well get this over and done with now.”

He moved the chair carefully in front of her desk and sat down gingerly, folding his jacket haphazardly in his lap as she sat down in her desk chair opposite him. She glanced up and seemed to look at him properly for the first time, staring down at his outfit for a moment.

“Seriously, you’re wearing braces as well?” she stated, almost in disbelief.

He shifted self-consciously under her gaze, running a hand automatically down one of his, rather fetching bright red braces that he was wearing today. “Yeah, well,” he mumbled, still not quite managing to look her in the eye after catching her undressing, “I don’t like belts.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before shaking her head. “Not sure why I asked,” she murmured to herself, “Fine, as we don’t have much time,” she said to him pointedly, “Let’s get down to business. Here’s what I think we should be working on in the next few weeks…”

Cringing slightly, John sat up straight in his chair and deliberately tried to sit very still and not fidget. The sooner they could get this out the way, the sooner he could disappear from this office and not think about River Song with a see-through shirt covered in coffee, taking off her shirt or even wearing his shirt. In fact, he could just not think about her at all.

\---

A week or so later, River was sat in her office, muttering to herself as she finished marking a stack of essays. Sighing, she sat back in her chair and idly flicked a thumb through the stack of paper. Not a single one seemed to have grasped the nuance and subtlety of the intricate Mayan artifacts that she had spent two hours detailing in last week’s lecture.

Letting the stack of paper drop back to the desk, she glanced around her office, her gaze falling on a bag that was by the side of the door. Inside was John’s shirt, all freshly washed and sat there for the past few days. She really should just go and find him and give it back to him.

She’d seen him a couple of times since he’d managed to cover her in coffee but each time he had seemed to scurry away, barely managing to mumble a greeting at her or look her in the eye.

She still couldn’t quite believe how completely he had managed cover her in that coffee or how anyone could be so unlucky, or so clumsy. Thank goodness he had had that spare shirt though; she’d have had to brazen the undergraduate lecture in a coffee-stained shirt otherwise. Then these essays would probably be even worse, she reflected with a rueful smile. She had looked at herself in the mirror briefly while he had left the room to find his shirt and had realised just how see-through it had gone. She thought he had run off completely and left her on her own initially. She’d been quite surprised when he’d returned bearing a clean shirt. She wouldn’t ever admit it to him, or even really anyone else, but she had quite liked wearing his shirt. It was a bit looser than she’d thought it would be – he was obviously a bit broader than he looked – but she thought she pulled it off quite well. One of her colleagues had even complimented her on it. Although, given how he normally dressed, she wasn’t quite sure how to take that comment.

She grinned further to herself when she recalled just how flustered John had got when she had started to change in front of him. She hadn’t meant to deliberately embarrass him by stripping off her shirt, but had just wanted to change as quickly as possible. On reflection, he had probably got more of an eyeful than he had bargained for. She didn’t think she had ever seen anyone turn quite so red so quickly. Even his ears had gone bright tomato. She’d found herself idly wondering just how far that blush had spread before stopping herself sternly. The rest of the meeting had gone remarkably smoothly, mostly because he had barely seemed able to do much more than mumble one-word agreements with her and look pointedly over her left shoulder most of the time. With anyone else, it would almost have been adorable.

Obviously, he wasn’t adorable she told herself. He was nothing but a trial on her wits. Someone sent from the gods to test every ounce of her patience. She couldn’t believe it when she got the email from the Dean telling her she’d be working closely with him for at least the next few weeks on this project. She’d gone and pleaded in person with her to change her mind. Told her that they didn’t get on, a clash of personalities, didn’t see eye to eye etc. She’d thought Florence was a bit of a pushover previously but it seemed like she had discovered a bit of backbone. She had been remarkably resolute in this and told River that she would just have to get on with it. ‘You never know, you two may come to some understanding,’ she had declared philosophically as she had closed the matter. River had muttered that the only understanding that was likely to happen would occur if one of them ended up murdered by the other. That hadn’t swayed the Dean either.

She’d then ranted at Jack again in the pub about the total injustice of it. He had laughed outright at her this time and not been the slightest bit sympathetic. Even worse, Jack had now started to demand that he meet John to judge for himself just how awful he was. When River had relayed the saga of the coffee and the ruined shirt to him, she had barely been able to stop him from heading over to the department there and then and seeking John out by himself.

She shook her head. She could certainly do without John worming his way into more areas of her life. Sod’s law was that he would meet Jack and instantly like him and she did not need that. She had enough oddball men in her life without adding one more. He was certainly an odd character, that was for sure. She’d looked up his profile on the physics department website. Not for stalking purposes obviously, just to check she wasn’t being asked to work with a total charlatan.

He’d done his original degree in America before returning to the UK to do his PhD but then hadn’t followed the usual route into academia of various post-doc positions. Instead, it seemed he’d done a bit of ad-hoc work here and there in various laboratories around the world. He’d still managed to publish a surprising number of papers despite this and had even found the time to invent a type of reactor component that had caused a minor revelation in the physics world. And yet, despite all of this, it seemed he hadn’t yet learnt basic control of all his limbs nor usual social mores she thought in amazement.

Glancing at the time, she shook her head to clear her thoughts. She had one of her weekly tutor groups arriving in five minutes. She usually took the session in her office in college, but recently had started using one of the small seminar rooms in the department. It was a bit handier for her and she could then bring up some of the artifacts that were kept in the archives in the basement. She picked up the stack of essays and stood up, making her way over to the door.

Locking her office, she headed down the corridor and down the stairs, making her way right to the far end of the corridor and pausing outside a door on the left. She was a couple of minutes early and none of the tutor group seemed to have arrived yet. She pushed open the door and then stopped dead inside the doorway.

“Oh,” an annoyingly familiar voice piped up, “Hello! Have you come to join us Dr Song?”

The seminar room in front of her was not peaceful and empty or perhaps even containing a couple of keen archaeology students. Instead, in front of her stood John Smith, looking ridiculous as ever in his bow-tie and braces, shirtsleeves rolled up and tweed jacket discarded on a chair. He was holding a half empty bottle of sparkling water in one hand and what looked like a toy rocket in the other. On the table in front of him was scattered various objects including a large box of Lego, several rolls of electrical tape, some bicarbonate of soda and rather alarmingly, some matches. There were about six students all gathered around the table, picking up various bits and assembling them together.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, staring around her.

“I’m teaching!” he announced, beaming at her while brandishing the rocket, “We’re looking at novel ways of developing rocket fuel. Did you know that the average space flight uses…

She shook her head impatiently and cut him off. “Not that, you idiot. I can see that. What are you doing in here? I’ve got a tutorial to give in here.”

“Oh,” he looked at her in surprise, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone was using the room.”

“I always use this room at 4 on Thursdays.”

He frowned and scratched his cheek worriedly. “Oh gosh, well that’s… I’m sure I checked with reception. And they definitely said the room was empty all Thursday afternoon and I would be fine to use it. And then I went back and double-checked today to make sure I had got the day right because sometimes I forget and then…”

She swallowed slightly guiltily as he trailed off. “Well, technically I suppose I don’t book it with reception,” she admitted reluctantly, “But, everyone in the department knows that I use it now and there’s never been a problem before with double-booking.”

He stared at her for a moment before his lips started to curl up in a small grin. “So, what you’re saying, Dr Song,” he said slowly, taking a step towards her and gesturing towards her with the toy rocket, “Is that actually, you’re intruding on _my_ teaching session?”

She glared at him indignantly as he now grinned outright at her. “That is not what I am saying at all.”

“That’s what it sounded like you were saying to me,” he retorted cheekily.

“I need to give a tutorial to my undergraduates in here _now_ ,” she hissed at him, aware that all of his students were now eyeing them both with interest and caught between wanting to throw him out by his bowtie and not make a scene.

He gave an expansive shrug before shaking his head in mock concern. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about that.”

“So, you’re not going to leave?” she demanded, hands on her hips as he grinned back at her.

He rocked back and forth on his heels as he pretended to consider her question for a moment. “Let me see, umm, no!”

She glared at him for a moment longer, clenching her fists briefly at her side and tamping down the urge to slap the smug grin off his stupid face.

Exhaling sharply, she spun on her heel and headed back towards the door, aware that all her students were now clustered around the doorway and looking in with interest.

“You’re welcome to join in here if you like instead?” he called after her as she marched out the door, “Probably more interesting than digging around in the sand or whatever you it was you were going to teach those poor students.”

She turned back to throw him a final glare as she pulled the door shut. “Oh, I hate you,” she muttered as he grinned delightedly and gave her a little wave as she shut the door with rather more force than necessary. What on earth had she been thinking, John Smith was certainly not adorable, he was currently the bane of her life.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! As always, comments basically make my week!


	3. Chapter 3

\--

The following Saturday, River was back in work. She didn’t normally come in at the weekends but the week had been busy and she hadn’t quite gotten everything done that she had wanted. Plus, the department was always quiet on a Saturday morning and she didn’t have anything else planned for the day.

After a couple of hours of sorting through things at her desk without any interruptions, she got up and headed towards the coffee room. Hopefully another hour or two and then she should be able to head off.

Wandering down the corridor, she was distracted by the sudden sound of screaming coming from the coffee room. Quickening her pace, she hurriedly made her way down the corridor. Pushing open the door, she planned on sharply reprimanding whoever was disturbing the peace on the weekend. However, she was confronted by the unexpected sight of John Smith anxiously flailing around an attractive red-headed lady who was clutching her eye and was clearly the source of the screaming.

“What on earth is going on here?” River demanded, as soon as she’d recovered from the unexpected sight.

At her voice, John whirled round to face her, starting as he recognised her. “It’s…I…sorry, we were just…” he stuttered, still flailing an arm in the direction of the other woman.

“My eye,” the red-head wailed, “John, I can’t see…”

Stepping into the room, River set down her mug on the table and walked towards the other woman. “What’s happened? What’s wrong with your eye?”

“There’s something in it,” the other woman shook her head, one hand still clutching her right eye, “I can’t see anything now. I’ve tried to wash it out but it just _hurts_ and I can’t see.”

“What’s in it?” River asked gently, nudging John aside as he stood next to her helplessly, wringing his hands in contrition.

“Umm, I think it was this,” John piped up, sounding slightly guilty.

River turned to look at him, glancing down at his hand where he was holding the remains of what looked like the toy rocket that she’d seen him brandish the previous week in his tutorial.

“What happened?” she asked suspiciously, glaring up at him.

He reached up to nervously scratch the back of his neck, “Err, I think it might have exploded…just a tiny bit…when Amy shook it…”

“Exploded?” River repeated, raising an eyebrow at him. Seriously, was this man a complete idiot? Who gave their girlfriend a model rocket that might actually explode? He didn’t reply but did have the grace to look very sheepish.

She shook her head in disbelief and turned back to the other woman. “Amy is it?” she said softly, as the other woman nodded, “Can I have a look?” Amy hesitated for a minute before lowering the hand that was covering her eye. River stepped in closer to her. “Are you able to open it for just a moment?”

Amy winced before opening her right eye just a fraction then shutting it again, screwing it up tight. “I’m sorry,” she choked back a sob, trying not to cry, “It really hurts.”

River moved slightly closer to her, leaning in and resting a hand against her forehead. “Do you mind if I try…” she asked softly.

Amy nodded and River gently tried to lift her eyelid up. There wasn’t much to see but it was already starting to get all bloodshot in the corner. “I think it’s probably best if we nip up to the hospital,” River sighed, shaking her head, “I can’t really see very much.”

“No, no!” John exclaimed, wringing his hands helplessly in front of him, “I’m sure we don’t need to do that. Try washing it out again with some water.”

River turned to glare at him. “If she’s already tried that and it still hurts then it’s best to get someone to look at it who knows what they are doing.” She turned away before he could answer and pulled out her phone. Dialling the number of a local cab company, she hung up after a few moments. “Taxi will be here in less than five minutes,” she said shortly, “Go and wait outside.”

John opened his mouth to retort something back but she’d already turned away from him to pat Amy on the arm. “You’ll be alright,” she said soothingly, “They’ll sort it out in no time.”

“Right, come along Pond,” John declared, seemingly deciding to ignore River as he took Amy’s arm and led her towards the door, “Let’s get you to hospital. You’ll be alright. Ooh, maybe they’ll give you an eyepatch like a pirate…”

Rolling her eyes, River watched them go before following them out and making her way quickly back to her office. She grabbed her jacket and handbag and then made her way back down towards the front of the building.

She emerged just as the black cab pulled up and trotted over just as John was opening the door and ushering Amy inside.

“Oh,” he exclaimed in surprise, “Are you coming too?”

She rolled her eyes at him again. Honestly, she was going to get an eye injury herself if she spent much more time around him doing that. She shoved him none too gently into the back of the cab before getting in after him.

She sat down opposite him and buckled in before pulling out her phone. “A friend of mine works at the hospital,” she replied tersely, “She’s an A&E consultant and I’m fairly sure she’s working today. She should be able to sort you out quite quickly I hope.”

“Oh, well, ummm…thanks,” he muttered, scratching his neck awkwardly as he stared at her. She returned his gaze for a moment before they both looked away. He turned pointedly to look at Amy who was hunched next to him in her seat, one hand still covering her eye and looking very sorry for herself.

He threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her towards him, placing a smacking kiss on her forehead. “You’ll be right as rain soon, don’t worry. I’ll take you for ice cream afterwards.”

Looking away from them, River stared out the window as the cab sped up the hill towards the hospital. She sighed inwardly to herself. A trip to the hospital with the one man in Oxford who really seemed to rile her up the wrong way along with his beautiful, leggy girlfriend was really not what she had had in mind as an ideal Saturday.

Twenty minutes later, they had managed to bypass the half-full waiting room and were being ushered into a small clinic room. Luckily, they’d managed to skip the queue thanks to River’s friend and hopefully this could all be sorted out as soon as possible.

“River!” the doctor holding the door open for them greeted River warmly. She was dressed in dark blue scrubs, with a stethoscope and lanyard around her neck proclaiming her to be Dr Martha Jones.

“Martha!” River broke into a genuine smile and gave the other woman a hug, “It’s lovely to see you and thank you so much for doing this.”

Martha shook her head and smiled at them all. “Not at all, I’m sure this won’t take long,” she turned to Amy who still had one eye tightly shut. She gently ushered her into a chair and put on a pair of gloves. “Now, can you tell me what happened.”

Leaning against the wall, River glanced at John who was watching Amy (he had finally thought to introduce her when they had arrived at the hospital) anxiously as she recounted what had happened to Martha. He was fiddling with his cuffs – he was _still_ in his tweed blazer for crying out loud. Honestly, she had thought it was some kind of work uniform but apparently he liked to dress like that even on weekends. All of a sudden though, he turned his head and looked at her instead, catching her watching him and she glanced away quickly, pointedly staring around the small clinic room instead.

Half an hour later, River was sat next to Amy in the waiting room while Martha went to fill in the paperwork. John had disappeared five minutes ago after seemingly being unable to sit still like an adult for more than a minute. Martha had diagnosed a simple corneal abrasion – nothing that a few days of eye drops wouldn’t sort out. Not even an eye patch would be needed after all.

“Thank you,” Amy said suddenly in the slightly awkward silence, “No, really,” she added as River just waved away her thanks, “You didn’t have to do this. You could have just sent me up here.”

River smiled and shrugged. “I know what the wait can be like in here sometimes. Thought I might be able to spare you that.”

Amy nodded in agreement. “Oh, I know. Rory…my boyfriend… he’s a nurse, he works here – not in A&E but in the hospital. He’s on night shifts at the moment or I’d have phoned him.”

“Oh…I thought you and John were…” River blurted out in surprise, stopping when Amy snorted in disgust.

“Eurgh, no!” she exclaimed with a laugh, “He’s my best friend,” she explained, “Ever since we were in school. But no! Nothing more!” she added, shaking her head emphatically.

River let out a soft laugh, choosing to ignore the sensation that felt suspiciously like relief wash over her. “Ah ok!” she said softly. Looking over at the other woman, she paused before adding with a sly smile. “You don’t find the bowtie and tweed combo a particular draw then?”

Amy laughed outright. “Ha, no it’s never done it for me!”

“I didn’t realise he dressed like that even at weekends,” River confessed with a grin.

“He’s dressed like that for years,” Amy shook her head in bemusement, “Even when we were younger. I bought him a T-shirt once for his birthday. I’ve never seen anyone look so appalled!”

River chuckled loudly just as the subject of their conversation reappeared in front of them.

He looked between the two of them suspiciously. “Umm, what are you two talking about?”

“Your terrible fashion sense,” Amy grinned at him.

“Oi, Pond,” he glared at her in mock outrage, “I’ll have you know not everyone can pull this look off you know,” he added, tugging on his jacket lapels proudly.

“Well, I suppose it does take quite a lot of bravery to walk around looking like that,” River drawled, raising an eyebrow at him mockingly. He opened his mouth to retort something but before he could, she added quickly, “Ooh, before I forget again. I have your shirt in my office.”

“What?” Amy suddenly cut in, eyes agog, “Excuse me, what did I miss? Why do you have his shirt?”

“Nothing like that!” John said hastily, his cheeks flushing slightly as River stared at him in amusement, “There was just a slight incident with a coffee mug, that’s.”

“He threw coffee all over me,” River explained, turning to Amy, “Just before I had to give a lecture.”

“I didn’t _throw_ it,” John spluttered indignantly, gesticulating wildly, “I just…tripped.”

“Ohh,” Amy exclaimed suddenly, realisation dawning on her face along with delight as she stared at River, “That was _you_!” she turned to John and smacked him on the arm, “You did _not_ say she was…”

“Shhh!” John hissed at her, waved his arms frantically while glaring at Amy.

River frowned slightly as she looked at Amy in confusion before glancing quickly at John who was suddenly looking rather embarrassed. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” John said hastily, not quite meeting her eyes and turning to glare pointedly at Amy, “I just told Amy about it that was all.”

Unconvinced that she was hearing the whole story, River nodded as she looked between the two of them, Amy who was grinning in delight and John who had now turned a familiar shade of red and was looking at a spot over her left shoulder.

“Well,” she said slowly, “I should probably head back into town. I still need to get some work done before this evening.”

“Oh, no, why don’t you come with us for coffee or tea or something?” Amy said quickly, as River stood, picking up her handbag, “My treat. To say thank you.”

“I really should get going I’m afraid,” River shook her head as Amy looked at her in disappointment, “I’m glad your eye is alright though.”

“Well, thank you again,” Amy said, as River turned and nodded to John who awkwardly nodded and gave a half-salute before quickly bringing his hand down again.

“Not at all,” River murmured, looking curiously at John and then back to Amy, “I’m just going to find Martha and say goodbye.”

She turned then and walked away, resisting the urge to look back over her shoulder. Shaking her head, she tried to clear her thoughts. She would find Martha and then head back to work for a few hours and certainly not ponder over the increasingly perplexing John Smith and just what exactly he had been telling his nearest and dearest about her.

\---

A few days later, John made his way along the corridor of the archaeology department towards River’s office. He was holding two cups of takeaway coffee – lids firmly attached – and taking extra care not to spill them.

He hadn’t spoken to River since she’d left them at the hospital on Saturday. He had, however, had to listen to an entire afternoon of Amy Pond waxing lyrical about how amazing she was. How helpful, funny and attractive she was. Why hadn’t he told her that River was attractive. He could at least have mentioned that he’d thrown coffee over someone as drop dead gorgeous as that. Apparently from his earlier description, he’d made her out to be some sort of hatchet-faced dragon. He didn’t think that was true. He certainly hadn’t mentioned exactly what she looked like to Amy beforehand but he didn’t think he had _deliberately_ misled her. Anyway, it was irrelevant what she looked like wasn’t it? She was just a colleague. Not even that really. Just someone he had to work with for the moment. Someone who unfortunately he had managed to rub up entirely the wrong way in the entire short time he had known her.

Amy had found their earlier feuding entirely hilarious and had insisted that he was completely in the wrong. She had told him he needed to apologise and offer an olive branch to River or she was going to march down and drag him along to River’s office herself. So that was how he found himself precariously balancing one coffee cup on top of the other while he knocked on the door to her office.

“Come in,” he heard River call and pushed open the door.

“John?” she looked up in surprise as he entered, “Did we have a meeting?”

He took a few steps in to the room and then very cautiously put one of the cups of coffee down on her desk before immediately backing away.

“What’s this?” she asked in bemusement.

“Peace offering,” he explained as she stared at him, “I…umm… I know we didn’t get off to the best start earlier this term,” he carried on, scratching the back of his neck slightly awkwardly, “But, well, we have to work together on this project and…well, I wanted to say thank you for your help with Amy at the weekend, so…” he gestured at the coffee in front of her as he trailed off.

She stared at him for a moment longer before shaking her head and then picking up the coffee. “Ooh, I love the coffee from this place,” she murmured appreciatively as she removed the lid and blew on the hot liquid before taking a sip, “Oh, they’ve made it just how I like it?” she exclaimed in surprise, glancing up at him with a questioning look, “Double americano with hot milk. How did you know?”

“Oh, lucky guess,” he lied with a shrug, biting his lip to stop himself smiling. He’d seen her go in to that coffee shop a couple of days previously and had followed her in afterwards, asking the bemused barista what the slightly intimidating lady with all the hair had ordered. Speaking of hair, he now knew what she looked like with all her hair loose and wild around her shoulders. It was piled up again on top of her head today but when he’d seen her here at the weekend, she’d been much more casually dressed than her usual work attire in jeans and a V-neck jumper, her hair down and loose.

“I’m amazed you dared to bring hot liquid into my office again,” River commented dryly, interrupting his thoughts and raising an eyebrow at him, “Or is this just a ploy to try and get me to strip in front of you again?”

“What?! No, I… I just…” he spluttered, his face turning red instantly as she smirked slightly at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

Taking pity on him as he still struggled to form words, she sat back in her chair, cradling the coffee in both her hands, “Ok. Peace offering accepted.”

He beamed at her and went to clap his hands together in delight but then stopped himself as he remembered his own coffee that he still held in one hand. “Excellent!” he declared as River rolled her eyes at him, although this time there was a distinct look of warmth that had been absent from her gaze previously, “So,” he continued, pulling up a chair to the other side of her desk, “I’ve been thinking about this project and I’ve had some ideas. I think it would work much better if…”

He stopped as she held up a hand. “John, sorry. Can you give me just five minutes?” she said apologetically, “I was just about to finish proof-reading this grant submission and I need to get it sent off ASAP. It won’t take me long.”

“Of course,” he said quickly, “I’ll just sit here and be quiet,” he mimed zipping his lips together as she smiled at him.

“Thanks,”

He sat back in his chair as she turned back to her computer screen. Glancing around him, he actually took in his surroundings properly. When he’d been in here last time, he’d gotten so flustered after spilling his coffee and then when she took her shirt off that…. No. He wasn’t going to think about that now. Shaking his head quickly to clear those thoughts, he looked around with interest. It wasn’t a particularly large office. River’s large, dark wooden desk took up quite a lot of it, she had her back to a window and the other two walls were lined with shelves containing huge numbers of books and various knickknacks. Getting up from his chair, he wandered over to one of the shelves, reaching out to pick up an interesting looking object at eye level.

“Please don’t touch that,” River’s voice suddenly cut in, sounding slightly alarmed.

He retracted his hand quickly with a sheepish grin before glancing down at the shelf below. There was a large globe resting on a stand with old nautical charts mapped on to its surface. He automatically reached out a finger to spin it on its axis but was stopped when River suddenly cleared her throat. Looking back guiltily at her, he returned to his seat and sat down again meekly.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he tried to sit very still. Well, he thought he was being still but obviously the tiny jostling of his leg and the drumming of his fingers must have caught River’s attention. Maybe she had supersonic hearing or something? Whatever it was, she was glaring up at him again.

She looked at him for a moment before sighing and then opening her desk drawer. Rummaging around inside, she pulled something out before handing it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked as he took the object from her, “Ooh!” he exclaimed, “A snow globe!”

“Something to keep you safely entertained,” River muttered as she turned back to her screen.

“I love snow globes,” he mumbled happily as he turned it upside down and watched the tiny pieces of glittery, artificial snow fall over a miniature replica of the Sydney Opera House.

“Of course you do,” River shook her head as she carried on frowning at the screen.

“It’s not very accurate though is it?” he commented as he turned it upside down again, “Snow in Sydney. That doesn’t seem very likely.”

“I don’t think it was aiming for meteorological accuracy,” River deadpanned as she finishing typing something before closing the document and turning back to him, watching as he held the snow globe up in front of his face.

“Why do you have this?” he asked suddenly, glancing up at her through his fringe, “It doesn’t seem very… very you.”

She winced imperceptibly, glancing down at her coffee. Damn him for being so perceptive. “What makes you say that?” she shrugged casually, trying to avoid the subject.

He looked around the rest of the room slowly before finding her gaze again. “I dunno, it just… it just doesn’t quite fit.”

She sighed slightly as he gazed at her softly, his eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her carefully. “It was a gift,” she admitted, her gaze falling to the small globe in his hand, “A…a friend of mine. He likes to bring me back something touristy and tacky that he knows I’ll hate whenever he goes to a conference abroad.”

“Oh,” John nodded.

“Well, he used to anyway,” River murmured softly, half to herself as she stared slightly wistfully at the snow globe.

“Your…friend?” John asked tentatively, not sure why he suddenly felt the urge to push the subject when she was clearly uncomfortable but he had a sudden desire to know if this was just a friend or something more, “Is he…?”

“He’s just a friend,” River cut in hastily, “Well, he is now. It was complicated and well…he lives in America now, so…” she added uncomfortably, shifting in her chair, “Oh, before I forget again, your shirt is in that bag over there,” she said, quickly changing the subject.

She nodded at a bag in the corner.

“Oh, that’s fine, don’t worry,” he waved a hand awkwardly, “In fact, keep it if you like, I’ve got loads and…”

“Why would I keep it?” River cut off his rambling with a bemused look, “Unless you were actually planning to throw hot liquids over me again and this is all just lulling me into a false sense of security?” she added with a sly grin as he started to splutter indignantly.

“I…no…of course not…I…”

“Oh calm down, I’m just teasing,” she sat back in her chair and grinned at him, picking up her coffee again and bringing it up to her lips, “You do blush rather adorably though,” she smirked as she took a sip of coffee and raked her gaze over the now familiar blush that was staining his cheeks again.

John took a deep breath, desperately willing the heat in his cheeks to subside. “Ha,” he said triumphantly, pointing a finger at her, “You think I’m adorable!”

River rolled her eyes at him as he grinned at her. “Oh, shut up,” she shook her head in exasperation but there was no malice in her voice at all this time, “It’s the only part of you that’s adorable. The rest of you is still barely tolerable.”

He leant back in his chair and outright grinned at her, shaking his head. “Just you wait, Dr Song, this is only the start of my charm offensive!”

“I await the rest with bated breath,” she retorted dryly, putting her coffee back down, “Now, you said you had an idea for this project…”

Leaning forward, John set his coffee down carefully before pulling out a sheet with some scribbled notes. Maybe this term was looking up after all.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!


	4. Chapter 4

\---

The following Thursday, River made her way towards the Turf Tavern in the centre of town. She ducked down into the doorway, taking down her umbrella and shaking it slightly before heading inside. Honestly, the weather in Oxford at this time of year could really be miserable. Pausing for a moment just inside the doorway, she took in the crowded pub, scanning the mass of bodies by the bar before she spotted Jack.

Elbowing her way through, she managed to make it to him just as he finished ordering and had turned away, brandishing a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Perfect timing!” he declared, leaning in and placing a smacking kiss on her cheek, “Right, let’s try and find a seat.”

Pushing their way through the crows, they headed through to one of the rooms at the back of the pub.

“Is everyone in Oxford in this pub this evening?” River grumbled as they looked around in vain for a free table.

“Ah well,” Jack shrugged, holding the bottle aloft, “We have wine and each other. We can drink standing up.”

Leaning against a nearby wall, River shrugged as well and took the two glasses out of his hand so he could pour the wine.

Putting the bottle on the floor between them, Jack took a large swig and then sighed. “Ahh, now this was needed,” he nodded emphatically, “Now, tell me, how have you been? How’s work?”

Taking a sip of her wine, River shrugged and started to give a quick run-down of what had happened recently. Before she had got very far though, Jack suddenly interrupted her.

“Ooh, any more run-ins with your cute nemesis?”

Hitting him lightly on the arm, River laughed. “Stop calling him that.”

“Why?!” Jack exclaimed with a cheeky grin, “it’s true?”

“Actually, we’ve come to a… an understanding,” River admitted.

“Oooh! Tell me more!”

“Not like that!” River shook her head hastily, “We just decided that, you know, we have to work together, we can be adults,” she explained, as Jack raised an eyebrow at her, “Plus, he bought me coffee from that wonderful little place on Broad Street.”

“He didn’t feed it to your shirt like last time?” Jack quipped as River smiled and shook her head.

“I think he might have imploded with embarrassment if that had happened again,” River remarked wryly, “Honestly, I’ve never seen a grown man blush so much.”

“Well, it’s lucky you like making grown men blush!” Jack retorted, nudging her playfully.

“No, I don’t!”

“Oh, you do!” Jack laughed at her indignant denial.

She opened her mouth to deny it further when someone called out from the other side of the room.

“River!”

Turning around, River caught sight of Amy Pond waving at her in delight from a table in the corner. Sat next to her on one side was a slim man with brown hair and a slightly unfortunate nose, on the other side of him, looking up slightly sheepishly at her, was John Smith.

Sighing slightly as Amy beckoned her over, River reluctantly crossed the room, elbowing Jack sharply when he hissed in her ear. “Is that him?!”

“Shhh,” she muttered under her breath as they approached the table, “Amy, John, hello” she smiled at the other woman.

“Hello! This is Rory, my boyfriend,” Amy announced, nudging the man sitting next to her, “This is River, the lady I was telling you about who helped with my eye.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” River waved away the praise as she shook Rory’s hand, “Nice to meet you Rory. This is my friend Jack,” she gestured to him as Jack saluted to the three around the table with a grin.

“Are you staying for the quiz?” Amy asked?

“Quiz?”

“Yes, it’s the pub quiz tonight?”

“Oh, of course,” River looked around her at all the groups sat on tables around them, “That’s why it’s so busy in here tonight. I’d forgotten.”

“Well, you can join us,” Amy said quickly, “Look we can budge up no problem,” she gave Rory another nudge so he shuffled along the bench slightly, “Come on, sit down, it’s no trouble,” she added quickly when River hesitated.

“We’d love to!” Jack announced, grabbing a free stool and pulling it up to the table, leaving River with no option but to sit on the only spare chair next to John. Sitting down gingerly, she glanced up at John who was peering at her from underneath his fringe.

“Sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly, “Amy’s a bit of a loose cannon, just does what she wants.”

River glanced across at Amy who was now chatting volubly with Jack. “It’s alright,” she murmured, sighing inwardly to herself.

She could manage one evening talking civilly to John couldn’t she. Besides, they had got on alright the other day when he’d turned up in her office. He’d certainly appeased her by turning up with her favourite coffee – she still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to guess that. Then when he’d stopped fidgeting and blushing long enough to explain his ideas about this project, she’d had to admit that they were actually pretty good and made a lot of sense. In fact, when he wasn’t being terribly arrogant or overbearing, then she’d grudgingly concede that he was actually quite good company. He was quick-witted, clever and funny and seemed to have no problem keeping up with her which was a refreshing change from some men. Not that she was interested in him like that of course.

Tuning back into the conversation, she caught the tail end of what Jack was saying and quickly interjected.

“He is _not_ a Captain,” she laughed as Jack turned to her indignantly, “That was just a stupid certificate he got over the internet. Ignore him!”

“Such slander Dr Song!” Jack gasped in mock outrage as River rolled her eyes at him fondly and he winked back at her, “It certainly caught your interest!”

“It did _not_ ,” River retorted with a laugh, smacking him gently on the arm.

“How can you be a Captain from the internet anyway,” John muttered sulkily, pouting into his disturbing brightly coloured fruit beer as River glanced at him curiously.

Before she could reply however, the quizmaster’s voice boomed over the tinny microphone alerting them all to the beginning of the quiz. The next hour or so passed very quickly. Amy and Rory were delightful company and very easy to get along with. Jack slotted seamlessly into their easy banter with John who perked up considerably with the start of the quiz.

At the half-way point, they were joint second with another team. Jack disappeared to the bar to get another round of drinks, leaving River at the table with the other three.

“So, River, Amy says you’re an archaeologist?” Rory asked her suddenly in the lull in the conversation.

Flicking her gaze briefly across to John who was staring pointedly down at his drink, River nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s right. I’ve been at the archaeology department here for about five years.”

“Why archaeology?” Rory looked up at her with interest.

River paused for a moment before answering. “It’s the stories,” she said softly, looking up at Rory, who was listening with interest, “Everything that we uncover – every little bit of pottery or rock or remnant of jewellery – those were all parts of someone’s life, no matter how long ago or how unimportant that might be to us now. Discovering and unpicking those stories…it’s fascinating and it’s a reminder as well.”

“A reminder?” Amy asked curiously.

“Yes,” River nodded looking over at Amy while fiddling absently with the stem of her wine glass, “A reminder that we’re all just stories, in one way or another. None of this is permanent… we should make the most of what we have,” she gestured around her as the rest of the table stared at her contemplatively. Risking a glance up to her left, she expected to see John scoffing at her, given his previous clear disdain for archaeology. Instead, he was staring intently at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

Clearing her throat slightly self-consciously, she added offhandedly with a grin, “Oh, and obviously I wanted to be Indiana Jones!”

“Hmph,” John snorted derisively, the spell clearly broken, “Well, he’s definitely just a story.”

Turning to face him, River quirked an eyebrow at him as she raised her wine glass to her lips, “Oh, I don’t know. How do you know _I_ don’t have a whip as well?!” Her smirk turned to an expression of glee as he suddenly choked on his drink at her words, spluttering his beer back into his pint glass.

Before he could fashion a reply however, the quizmaster’s voice crackled over the microphone and the second half started, the first round being a picture-round of naming various objects from around the world.

As the rest of the table pored over the piece of paper, River glanced up and across the room. “Oh, there’s Ramone,” she exclaimed, suddenly recognising one of the men leaning against the bar.

Snapping his head round to look at the bar, Jack whistled appreciatively. “Ooh, is he the new post-doc in your department?”

Peering across the table, Amy stage-whispered. “Which one is he? Ooh, the one in the blue shirt?” River nodded at her with a grin as Amy craned her neck to try and get a better view, nudging John out the way with her elbow who turned round to then glare at her, "Hmm, maybe I'll come and visit you at work River!"

"Umm, excuse me!" Rory interjected, looking mildly offended as Amy patted his arm consolingly.

"Only joking," she said soothingly, while grinning conspiratorially at River and Jack.

“Well, he can come and tend to _my_ ancient artifacts any day!” Jack winked at River and Amy lasciviously while Rory and John looked even more put out.

Nodding, River grinned at him. “I think I should go and say hello. Just to be welcoming.”

Pushing her chair back, River stood up to head over to the bar. As she did so, she glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of John. Leaning down towards him slightly, she frowned before pointing at one of the pictures.

“That’s wrong.”

“What?” his head shot up as he looked up to glare at her.

“You’ve got that one wrong,” River repeated slowly.

“No, I haven’t,” he retorted indignantly, looking down at the picture before back up at her, “It’s a samurai sword.”

She shook her head as a small smile played around her lips. “It’s not. It’s a scimitar. Persian by the look of it. Easy mistake to make.”

“I spent a year in Japan!” he spluttered crossly, “I should think I would know.”

River shrugged at him as she turned away, raising an eyebrow mischievously at him as she did so. “Suit yourself.” 

Walking away to the bar, she could hear John muttering under his breath and resisted the urge to turn around and grin at him.

“Oi, Raggedy-man,” Amy’s voice cut across John’s muttering, “Stop gawping at her and write the answer down.”

“I am _not_ gawping,” John almost squealed in indignation, “How does she know all this stuff about weapons anyway – first it’s whips, now swords?”

Looking at him in bemusement, a grin suddenly broke out over Amy’s face as she watched him glare over at River who was now standing chatting animatedly to the rather good-looking Ramone at the bar.

“What?” John frowned at her as she continued to grin at him.

Amy just shook her head, biting her lip to suppress the grin but failing as he looked at her in confusion, “Nothing, nothing at all!”

They lost the quiz in the end by one point. John refused to look River in the eye when she checked the score sheet and realised he had refused to change his answer to the sword question. She waited until she got home and then sent him a long scholarly article on the differences between Middle Eastern and Japanese weaponry.

\---

John’s first term passed by almost in a whirlwind. There was an almost endless stream of teaching, lectures, lab practicals as well as tutorials, meetings, seminars and more meetings. Almost without realising, it was soon almost the end of the undergraduate term.

It was a few weeks later, one Sunday morning, John was sitting at Amy and Rory’s kitchen table, holding his head in his hands. He had crashed the night on their sofa, well, he had had slightly too much to drink after what was supposed to be a low-key movie night and had then passed out asleep instead of making it back home to his own flat.

“Urgh,” he groaned, “Why did you let me drink so much?”

Rolling her eyes at him as she finished making tea, Amy brought over the mugs and set them down on the table. “First of all, you are a grown-up, I did not let you do anything, you decided to drink that whisky all by yourself,” she announced, sitting down next to him and pulling her mug towards her, “Secondly, you didn’t drink _that_ much. You’re just a lightweight.”

“I feel like there’s a tiny man with a sledgehammer inside my brain,” John mumbled, still not lifting his head up.

“Oh, stop being so dramatic,” Amy chided him unsympathetically, “It’s just a hangover. You’ll live.”

“I don’t feel like I will,” he sighed mournfully.

His phone buzzed next to him and he lifted his head up with a wince to glance at it. “What! How did River get that… did you send her a picture of me passed out on your sofa?” he pointed a finger accusingly at Amy who simply shrugged.

“She messaged me earlier to say she was sorry she missed movie night,” Amy grinned at him over her mug, “I just sent her a photo of what she had missed – namely, you drooling onto our sofa cushions.”

“Pond!” he wailed plaintively, staring down at his phone in dismay, “You didn’t have to send her _that_ photo!”

“What’s the matter?” Amy asked, a sly smile on her face, “Afraid you’re not looking your best in that one?”

“What?” he replied distractedly, still typing a reply into his phone, “No, it’s not that…”

“You know,” Amy said knowingly after a few moments as she watched him concentrate on the small screen in front of him, “You should just ask her out.”

“Ask who out?” he mumbled, not looking up at her as he frowned in concentration.

“River.”

“What?” he spluttered, whipping his head up to stare at her in disbelief, “River? No, but, I… but it’s…I can’t…River?!”

Amy raised an eyebrow at him, taking a sip of her tea as he continued to splutter at her.

“I’m not sure I got any of that?” she deadpanned.

“Why would I ask _River_ out?” John stared at her as she calmly sipped her tea.

“Why not?”

“Because…she’s…well…” he stammered as Amy rolled her eyes at him again.

“Oh, come on, she’s clever and funny and, quite frankly, is pretty stunning to look at – in fact, she’s probably completely out of your league, and…”

“Rude!”

Amy ignored his indignant outburst and carried on. “And she’s one of the few women I’ve actually seen you pay attention to in recent years and you clearly fancy her.”

“I…what, no I don’t _fancy_ River,” John squeaked, his face turning bright red as he wrung his hands in front of him agitatedly.

“Why not?” Amy laughed, “I’m pretty sure half this town does!”

“But… that’s not…”

“You bicker with her and tease her all the time,” Amy continued knowingly, “Which is basically your way of flirting with anyone. You can’t take your eyes off her when she’s in the room and you glare daggers at anyone else she chats up whenever we go to the pub.”

“I do not!” he insisted as Amy simply quirked an eyebrow disbelievingly at him.

“Anyway,” she added, the sly smile returning to her face, “I think she likes you too.”

Avoiding her gaze, John reached out for his mug of tea and blew on it, desperate for a distraction. “That’s just…that’s rubbish,” he mumbled, shaking his head, “We’re just… just friends that’s all.”

Shaking her head as well, Amy simply laughed. “Fine, have it your way. When are you next seeing her by the way? Make her come to my birthday party.”

Which is how, three days later, he now came to be making the rather familiar trek through the archaeology department to her office, bearing two cups of coffee. It had been nearly two months since he’d first brought her coffee as a peace offering. Since then, he’d started dropping by her office more frequently – if he had happened to have found her timetable and memorised it then that was just because he had a very good memory, that was all. They’d also started going out for lunch together once or twice a week, on days they were both in the department. River had shown him some of the local hidden places away from all the tourists. River and Jack had also joined him, Amy and Rory in the pub for the quiz a couple of other times since their initial visit.

As he’d said to Amy, they had become friends. Despite their shaky start at the beginning of term, they now got on pretty well. She still had some slightly maddening tendencies, one of the worst being her ability to insert innuendo into pretty much any sentence, no matter how innocuous it first seemed. He had always had an unfortunate tendency to blush bright red at anything like that and he was sure River went out of her way to now exploit that and seemed to delight in making him turn any shade of tomato.

Privately, he would admit however that they did seem to be very well matched in some respects – she was definitely almost nearly, well, probably as clever as him – not that he’d admit that out loud. And she was quick, and funny and certainly had the most fascinating hair that he’d ever seen but he certainly didn’t _fancy_ River or anything ridiculous like that. No matter what rubbish Amy had been suggesting the other day.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he gave a cursory knock on River’s office door before barging straight in. A slightly stressed-looking River looked up at him as he entered.

“How can I… oh, John, it’s just you,” she sighed, her frown relaxing slightly.

“I bring sustenance,” he announced with a grin, holding up coffee and a bag with pastries as well, watching as her face lit up.

“Oh, you are a life-saver,” she breathed, gratefully taking the coffee cup from him and removing the lid.

“Busy morning?” he asked as he sank down into the chair on the other side of her desk.

“Mmm, you could say that,” River said as she took a long sip of her coffee, “God, that’s good,” she murmured appreciatively, letting out a small noise of pleasure that for some reason sent a small shiver down his spine, “Thank you sweetie,” she added with a small sigh, leaning back in her chair and looking up at him.

Flushing slightly at the unexpected endearment, he waved a hand dismissively.

Peering at him, River frowned slightly. “Why have you gone red?” she asked curiously, “What have you done? Have you broken anything?” she added suspiciously, glancing quickly around the desk for evidence of any debris.

“No! Nothing,” he squeaked, his voice coming out significantly higher than he had planned as he tugged on his bowtie and desperately willed the blush on his cheeks to subside, “ It’s nothing,” he repeated in a more normal tone, managing to meet her gaze as she looked at him in puzzled amusement.

River shook her head at him before reaching for the paper bag in front of her and pulling out a croissant. “So,” she asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? Other than for sharing some delicious pastry, obviously?”

He shrugged nonchalantly while reaching for the bag and pulling out the other croissant and taking a large bite. “Mid-week treat,” he mumbled through a mouthful of pastry, watching as she rolled her eyes fondly at him.

“Well, I’m not complaining.”

“Also,” he added once he’d swallowed his mouthful, “Amy told me I had to persuade you to come to her birthday party next Saturday.”

“Persuade?” River raised an eyebrow at him, “Why do you have to persuade me? She’s not having some hideous fancy-dress theme or anything is she?”

“I don’t think so,” John frowned as he looked down at his croissant, “Although,” he added thoughtfully, as he took another bite, “I do quite like fancy-dress.”

“That does not surprise me in the slightest,” River retorted, completely deadpan.

“Maybe I could get her to change it,” he mused contemplatively, “Or maybe a hat theme! I’ve got loads of great hats. Ooh I found this wonderful fez in Morocco recently and…”

“Please don’t,” River gave a mock shudder as she took another sip of coffee, “Or I’ll have to come as Indiana Jones and shoot it off you.”

“I thought you had a whip for that look instead,” he retorted without thinking, immediately regretting his choice of words when a look of delight lit up her face.

“Have you been thinking about me with a whip then sweetie,” she smirked, leaning back in her chair and stretching her legs out under her desk, her grin only widening as, predictably, he blushed bright red again, “I knew you had a kinky side.”

“Oh, shut up,” he murmured in embarrassment, avoiding her gaze and desperately now trying to _not_ conjure up any mental images of River Song wielding a whip in any kind of scenario. He crossed his legs and swallowed heavily, casting his mind over some decidedly non-erotic mental arithmetic instead.

Taking pity on him, River laughed and leant forward to pick up her croissant again. “Ok, so no fancy-dress. How old is Amy? Is it a big birthday? Do I need to buy her something fabulous?”

Sighing in relief to himself, he shook his head. “No, don’t worry about that. Just yourself. Oh, and Amy was going to ask Jack as well, bring him.”

She smiled at him before taking another bite of her pastry. “So, tell me how you managed to pass out on Amy and Rory’s sofa on Saturday night.”

He groaned dramatically as he slouched down in his chair. “Bloody Amelia!” he exclaimed, waving his hands around in the air, “I _barely_ drank anything. Well, not much. Perhaps a bit,” he amended as River grinned at him, “She always takes embarrassing photos of me.”

“Sounds like a true best friend,” she commented as he harrumphed indignantly, “Maybe we’ll see some more next weekend!”

“Hmph,” he grumbled, picking up the last of his pastry, “I knew I shouldn’t have introduced you two.”

River simply grinned at him, her hand automatically sneaking out to smack his as he tried to steal the last of her croissant as well. The thought crossed his mind briefly that maybe Amy would say something similar to River as she had to him the other day. No, he thought, dismissing it with a small shake of his head, she wouldn’t do that to him surely.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my birthday last week - the best belated birthday present ever would be comments! Hope you enjoy this one!


	5. Chapter 5

\---

The following Saturday was Amy’s birthday party. John had arrived early and spent the afternoon blowing up balloons and decorating the living room with streamers despite Rory’s protestations that this was not a child’s birthday party. He’d then shooed Amy out the kitchen and helped Rory decorate her cake. Now it was evening and the house was full of people. He was in the kitchen, pretending to help Amy with the drinks but actually keeping an on the door.

“She’s not here yet,” Amy called out to him in a sing-song as he surreptitiously glanced over at the door again.

“What?” he scowled in reply.

“River,” Amy retorted with a pointed grin.

“I wasn’t looking for her,” he protested, glaring at her and stealing a handful of crisps from the bowl on the table.

“Really?!”

“Yes, really,” he protested, stuffing the crisps in his mouth and avoiding her gaze.

“I think she’s bringing a date anyway,” Amy remarked casually, watching him carefully as he turned his head quickly to stare at her.

“A date?”

“Yup,” Amy nodded, taking a sip of her drink and trying to hide the grin on her face as John quickly tried to hide the crestfallen expression on his face.

“Oh.”

“Not that you care,” she continued knowingly as he swallowed heavily and glanced again at the door before shaking his head emphatically.

Exhaling loudly, John turned towards the table and grabbed a glass, ladling himself a large glass of punch and taking a big gulp.

“I thought you weren’t drinking tonight?” Amy asked in amusement as he coughed slightly at the taste.

“Changed my mind,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with one hand while peering dubiously into the glass, “Urgh. What the hell is in here?”

“Oh, you know,” Amy waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the cupboards, “This and that. I think there were a couple of bottles of unidentified spirits from last year that might have made their way in there.”

John looked down over at the punch bowl in horror before quickly adding a large measure of orange juice to his glass.

Amy patted him on the arm reassuringly. “Oh, don’t worry. Maybe it’ll give you some Dutch courage. Remember our little bet after all?!”

She grinned at him as he blanched and opened his mouth to protest.

“But…”

“Nuh-uh,” Amy shook her head vigorously, cutting off his protestations and wagging a finger at him, “A bet is a bet, I’m afraid,” she ladled another generous measure of punch into his glass before steering him away from the table, “You never know. It may be your lucky night.”

A couple of hours later, River pushed through the groups of people in Amy and Rory’s hallway. She’d just arrived after a fairly disastrous date and was in desperate need of a drink. Spying Amy at the far end of the room, she made her way over to her.

“Happy birthday!” River announced, planting a loud kiss on Amy’s cheek and handing her a bottle of champagne, “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I brought you some champagne.”

“Ooh, lovely,” Amy cooed, taking the bottle from her and looking at the label appreciatively, “Thank you!”

Turning around, she put the bottle on the side. “What can I get you to drink?” she asked River, “Wine, fizz…there’s punch although I’m not sure I’d recommend that unless you don’t really want to remember much of tonight…” she added, glancing dubiously at the bowl of brightly coloured liquid on the kitchen table.

“Fizz would be wonderful, thank you.”

“Here you go,” Amy poured her a generous glass that River took gratefully.

“What’s up with John?” River asked, nodding at the other side of the room where John was sat by himself, perched on the arm of the sofa and peering morosely into the bottom of his glass, “Did you confiscate his tweed or something terrible like that?!”

Amy laughed as she passed River a glass of fizz. “No, much worse I’m afraid.”

River quirked an eyebrow at her. “Oh really?”

Leaning slightly towards River, Amy lowered her voice conspiratorially as River automatically leaned in as well. “We had a bet and he’s about to lose.”

Giving her an intrigued look, River took a sip of her champagne as Amy continued.

“We made a drunken bet ages ago. I found out he hadn’t kissed anyone, like _anyone_ or even been on a date for about two years,” Amy explained, “And he was whinging about being single and not being able to find anyone and that he was going to die a lonely old man.”

River let out a small laugh at the picture, “Oh, poor John.”

“Oh, he’s always been like this,” Amy said dismissively, “He’s got loads of friends but he’s terrible at telling anyone he _actually_ likes them,” she added, looking at River pointedly who returned her look with one of bemusement. Amy sighed and rolled her eyes in exasperation, “Anyway, so we had a bet that he had to go out with or at least kiss someone by my birthday party and…well, here we!”

They both turned to look at John again who was now stirring his drink with a brightly coloured straw. River was on the verge of going over to him when, just as they were watching, as a pretty, petite brunette woman approached John who suddenly perked up as she sat down next to him on the sofa.

Winking at Amy as she turned away, River took a long sip of her champagne. “Well, maybe this is his lucky night. Maybe he won’t lose after all!”

An hour or so later, River made her way back into the living room. It was now well past midnight and Amy and Rory’s small house was still pretty full of people and a few had spilled out into the garden at the back despite the chill that was in the air.

Glancing around the room, she could see Jack flirting outrageously with at least two people at once. Amy was brandishing yet another bottle of champagne that Rory seemed to be desperately trying to make sure she didn’t spray all over the furniture.

Looking around again, she then spotted John lurking by himself next to the open door and fiddling absently with his bowtie. He had lost his tweed jacket somewhere but was still wearing his usual dark jeans, shirt, bowtie and braces.

She grinned to herself before sauntering over to him. “I see you’ve got your party outfit on today!” she quipped as he jerked his head round at her voice.

He stood up a bit straighter as she approached. “This is my party bowtie I’ll have you know.”

“Really?!” she raised an eyebrow at him in amusement.

“Yeah!” he grinned back at her, his hands automatically fixing his bowtie, “You should see my moves with this bad boy!”

River laughed at him as he preened in front of her. “Well, that’s a slightly terrifying image I must say,” she smirked at him over the rim of her glass as he pouted back at her in mock outrage.

“Just you wait, Song,” he retorted, pointing a finger at her, “I’ll show you my moves on the dancefloor later! You’ll be in awe!”

“Hmmm,” River looked him up and down doubtfully, trying to hold back another laugh as she did so.

They looked at each other for a long moment. “I thought you were…umm…where’s your date?” John blurted out suddenly.

River grimaced slightly and took another sip of her champagne. “We went for dinner earlier. I ditched him before I came here. That one’s not going to work out.”

“Oh,” his lips curled up in a quick smile before he schooled his expression into an approximation of commiseration, “Sorry about that.”

River simply shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll get over it,” she said nonchalantly, “I already have,” she added with a wink as John grinned at her.

They stared at each other for another moment or so before River shook her head slightly. “So, what’s this I hear about a bet with you and Amy?”

John’s expression changed immediately to a mixture of horror and embarrassment. “Pond!” he gasped, glaring across the room at where Amy was now dancing with Jack, “I can’t believe she told you.”

River threw her head back and laughed as he covered his face with his hands in mortification.

“So, what happens if you lose?” she asked with a mischievous grin, “If you haven’t tricked some poor unlucky soul into kissing you by the end of the night do you turn into a pumpkin or something?”

“No, much worse than that,” he groaned, his hands still covering his face as River rolled her eyes at him.

“Oh, come on, tell me, it can’t be that bad.”

“It’s terrible,” he sighed dramatically, eventually lifting his hands to stare pitifully at her, “Amy’s bought this…this thing I have to wear.”

“What thing?” River asked curiously.

John swallowed heavily before explaining. “I think it’s called a…a onesie?” he mumbled in horror as River tried to stifle a laugh at the expression on his face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone before scrolling through the pictures and then showing it to River. “She sent me a picture.”

River took the phone and peered at the screen before letting out a gasp of laughter. “Oh wow, that’s brilliant! It’s a _giraffe_ onesie!” she exclaimed in delight, handing the phone back to him and grinning up at him, “How long do you have to wear it for?”

“A week,” he whispered, looking down at the picture again and shaking his head despairingly.

“A week?” River exclaimed in delight, “My, my. Amy Pond is an evil genius!”

“She really is,” he agreed, groaning again in horror at the picture. He stared down at the phone for another long moment before suddenly glancing up at her as a look of inspiration dawned on his face. “You can help me!”

“What do you mean?” River laughed as he put his phone away and waved his hands enthusiastically in the air.

“We can…you know…” he gestured between them vaguely as she shook her head in confusion.

“What?” she asked, “Oh… _oh…”_

His meaning suddenly dawned on her when he started miming kissing noises and then grinned at her.

“No,” River shook her head and laughed, “Sorry sweetie but I’m not being deprived of the sight of you wearing that monstrosity of a garment for a week.”

“But,” he pouted at her, a pleading expression crossing his face as he stepped in towards her, “Please River! Please, I’ll do anything.”

River bit her bottom lip and paused for a moment as she looked at John who was staring imploringly at her, his fingers clasped together in front of him. She could just kiss him couldn’t she? It wasn’t as though it would mean anything and besides, it was not as though her date was here to complain about it. She also rather liked the idea of having John owe her a favour – she was sure she could think of something that would be worth her while. Plus, he wasn’t _bad_ to look at really, once you got past the ridiculous outfit then he was quite attractive in a certain way and the way he was looking at her now, all pouty lips and deliciously sharp cheekbones and…

“Alright,” she breathed, making a sudden decision and watching as his face suddenly lit up, “But,” she held up a finger between them, “I want a photo of you in that onesie.”

“But…”

“No,” she shook her head as he started to complain, “That’s the bare minimum. Plus, an unspecified favour to be called in at a later date.”

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment or two, obviously caught between the desire to win the bet and not wanting to owe her anything. “Ok,” he nodded after another moment’s pause, “Deal.”

River swallowed, suddenly feeling her heart beating faster than it had a moment ago as he glanced around the room before looking back at her, licking his lips nervously. “Shall we…I mean…is now…” he mumbled awkwardly.

“Well, I don’t think we have to make an announcement to the rest of the room,” she scoffed, tilting her head to one side slightly as she set her glass down on the windowsill behind her. Taking a deep breath, she ignored the fluttering in her stomach. This was just a meaningless kiss, a simple favour for a friend, nothing more at all.

“No, but…what about… I mean…” he babbled nervously, gesturing vaguely around the room.

She rolled her eyes at him before stepping in closer. “Oh, just come here,” she muttered before reaching out and grasping his shirt front, pulling him towards her. Leaning up towards him, she pressed her lips firmly to his and kissed him. He made a soft noise that sounded half way between a squeak of surprise and a moan while his hands flailed helplessly in the air for a moment. She was about to pull away, settling for a mere chaste kiss when one of his hands settled on her shoulder, the other dropping to her waist as he pulled her against him. His mouth opened under hers, his tongue gently stroking hers as he kissed her back properly. He tasted sweet, with just a hint of the punch he’d been drinking earlier and all thoughts of pulling away left River’s mind entirely as his hand on her waist slipped around her back and he pulled her flush against him, deepening the kiss as he did so.

His other hand was just sliding up into her hair when the sound of loud whooping nearby made them break apart breathlessly.

Brandishing the champagne bottle in one hand, Amy lurched triumphantly towards them. “Woohoo! Ha! I knew it!”

Starting at the interruption, River let go of John’s shirt front and stepped back from him, desperately trying to catch her breath and compose herself. She risked a glance up at John who also seemed similarly out of breath and was running a hand through his hair, avoiding her gaze.

“Well, it’s about time you two…” Amy mimed kissing as she poured herself another generous measure of fizz.

“Oh, shush Pond,” John muttered, and River could see him turning his usual shade of red under Amy’s mischievous grin, “I’ve just won our bet that’s all.”

Taking a deep breath, River schooled her expression into something a bit less rattled and turned to Amy, pasting on a grin and shrugging. “Sorry dear, I’m afraid he has. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Oh really?!” Amy leered at them both as she took a large gulp of her drink.

“Not like that!” John squeaked, wringing his hands in front of him in as Amy just laughed, made another kissing face at the two of them then and turned away, swaying back to the middle of the living room to carry on dancing.

They both watched her go for a moment before turning to each other awkwardly.

“Sorry about that,” John mumbled, peering up at her from under his fringe, “I think she might have had all of the champagne at this party.”

River waved away his apology. “Don’t worry about it, she’s just joking.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. They were still standing quite close together and River could see his mouth was still all kiss-swollen and red. As she automatically licked her lips, she watched as his gaze dropped down to her mouth briefly. Her breathing hitched slightly as he stared intently down at her, his eyes darker than usual and his previous bashful, embarrassment now gone.

Swallowing heavily, she leant in slightly to murmur to him as he inclined his head towards her at the same time. “Do you want to…”

“River!”

She was cut off from finishing by Jack bellowing her name from the dance floor. Startled, River jerked back away from him, blinking a few times before turning to face Jack.

“Come and dance!” he cried, waving his glass precariously in the air as he twirled Amy round with the other hand.

Sighing, River nodded placatingly at him. “Alright, in a minute,” sha called over her shoulder. She turned back to John who had now stepped back slightly, the previous charged atmosphere between them now broken. “I should…” she gestured to the dancefloor as he nodded, his hair falling back down into his face as he gazed at her awkwardly. She took a deep breath and stepped back slightly as well. “Remember to send me that photo!” she wagged a finger at him jokingly as she backed away towards Jack and Amy and few others who had turned the living room into a dancefloor. He screwed up his eyes in mock dismay before nodding and giving her a small salute as she grinned at him before turning away to dance and not think about the fact that she had very nearly propositioned John Smith.

\---

The following Friday, River was sat in a small café at lunchtime, idly thumbing through a pile of essays while she waited for Jack to appear. The week had been hellishly busy and thank God it was now nearly over. She was usually slightly freer once the undergraduate term was over but at the moment she just seemed to be drowning in paperwork. Normally she would have the chance to escape more than once for lunch or even coffee but this week that hadn’t been possible.

She would also usually see John at least a couple of times in the week. They’d either have lunch or he’d pop by for coffee or sometimes just to sit in her office and annoy her by fiddling with anything in arm’s reach. However, this week he’d almost been noticeable by his absence. That is, until this morning when he’d briefly appeared in her office.

She couldn’t help but wonder if he was avoiding her after they’d kissed at Amy’s party at the weekend. After Jack’s timely interruption, she’d not spoken to John again properly for the rest of the night and had had to escort a rather worse-for-wear Jack home in a taxi in the early hours of the morning. She’d woken up the following morning with a slightly sore head although that had certainly been eased by the promised photo that John had sent later that day of himself looking totally mortified in that awful giraffe onesie. The thought of it still made her chuckle to herself from time to time.

She’d thought he might be a bit embarrassed when he next saw her and that had certainly been the case this morning, his awkwardness had been at an all-time adorable high. God, what was wrong with her, she thought? She’d never before found this bumbling, awkward shyness particularly endearing but suddenly put John Smith in front of her, blushing and stammering and suddenly all she wanted to do was run her hands through that stupid floppy hair of his and pin him down to find out just how much of him could turn red…No!

She took a deep breath and blinked a few times to clear that particular line of thought. Jesus Christ, she needed to get laid sooner rather than later if that was the train of her thoughts.

The treacherous part of her mind however told her that that was exactly what she had come very close to doing on Saturday night. Only Jack’s timely, or untimely, interruption had stopped her from asking John if he wanted to come back to hers… and she certainly hadn’t meant just for a cup of coffee. Shaking her head, she tried to rid herself of the image of John’s intense gaze on hers as she’d leant in. If she was being perfectly honest with herself as well, she wasn’t sure what more concerning – the fact that she had almost asked him or the idea that he might have said yes…

She was stirred suddenly from her thoughts by the sound of the door jangling and looked up to see Jack bustling through the door before plonking himself down in front of her.

“Coffee,” he declared dramatically as he shrugged his coat off, “I need some coffee.”

River smiled indulgently at him as he sank back into his chair. “Heavy night last night?”

“You could say that!” Jack sighed as he ran his gaze over the menu.

“On a school night as well,” River tutted playfully, “I don’t know how you do it.”

He looked up at her and winked just as the waiter came over to take their order.

He looked up after they’d ordered. “So, what’s up with you?” Jack asked before suddenly interrupting just as River opened her mouth to speak, “Oooh! No, before you tell me _anything_ else… Don’t think you’re going to get away without discussing snogging Dr Bowtie at the weekend!”

“Oh, shut up,” River swatted him with a napkin as he smirked at her across the table, “That was just for a bet, nothing more.”

“Hmm,” Jack raised an eyebrow at her, “It certainly looked like a bit more from where I was standing!”

River glared at him as she took a sip of her coffee.

“Go on, was he a good kisser at least?” Jack leant forward eagerly as she set her coffee back down on the table.

“That would be telling,” she retorted primly, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair.

“Spoilsport,” Jack grumbled as he stirred another sugar into his coffee. River glanced away as she tried not to think about the feel of John’s lips against hers, the taste of him as he’d kissed her and the feel of his arms around her. She shook her head as a small shiver ran down her spine, pasting a smile on her face and hoping Jack hadn’t noticed her distraction.

“Although I’m sure that means yes,” he probed hopefully, looking at her knowingly as she simply shook her head despairingly at him, “Have you seen him since?” Jack asked as the waiter set their food down in front of them.

“This morning actually,” River admitted as she cut into the salad in front of her, “He popped into my office to…” she trailed off as Jack raised an eyebrow inquisitively at her, “Well, to…”

_She’d been at her office desk since 8am that morning, desperately trying to work her way through her mountain of admin that only seemed to be increasing. She was now in the middle of trying to decipher a particularly obscure research proposal from a post-doc when there’d been a knock at her door._

_Huffing in irritation at the interruption, she glanced up at the door as it swung open._

_“Oh, John, it’s you,” she sighed, her expression softening as she pulled her reading glasses off and blinking at him as he closed the door, “Sorry, sweetie,” she said apologetically as he made his way into the room, the endearment slipping out automatically, “I don’t really have time for coffee or anything. I’m slightly drowning in all this paperwork,” she gestured to the stack of papers in front of her._

_“Oh, sorry, no, that’s ok,” he said quickly, waving away her apology as he stood in front of her desk, rocking slightly back and forth on his heels._

_For a moment he simply stared at her, his hands clasped in front of him as if to stop himself fidgeting._

_“Was there something you wanted?” River asked after a moment as he still didn’t say anything._

_“No, no,” he shook his head vigorously, “I just wanted to check how you were. I haven’t seen you all week since… well, since…” he trailed off, self-consciously rubbing the back of his neck with one hand._

_River cleared her throat awkwardly at the implication of when they’d last seen each other and looked away from him. She glanced back up at him, watching as he awkwardly shuffled from foot to foot in a frankly adorable way._

_“Well, anyway, I should…” he gestured towards the door as River nodded slowly, “I hope work calms down a bit soon for you.”_

_“Thanks,” River murmured, slightly bemused by his behaviour as he backed towards the door and turned to open it, “Me too.”_

_He pulled the door open and seemed about to head through it when he hesitated and turned back towards her. “Actually… there was…well I was just wondering… you don’t have to, and you’re probably already busy but I thought I would ask and…”_

_“John,” River cut in with a patient smile at his rambling, “What is it?”_

_He took a deep breath before ploughing on. “I’ve just got a couple of tickets for that new play at the Playhouse you said you wanted to see…next Saturday evening… and I was wondering…if you’re not busy then, do you want to go…but it doesn’t matter if you are so…” he trailed off, lifting a hand to brush through his hair that had fallen down into his face as he bit his bottom lip anxiously._

_“Next Saturday?” River repeated with a small frown as he nodded, “Yes, I think I’m free,” she said slowly watching as a slow grin lit up his face, “That sounds lovely, thank you.”_

_He clapped his hands together as he stood up straighter and beamed at her all of a sudden. “Excellent!” she returned his grin as he backed out the door, “Next Saturday then Dr Song!” he called out as he left the room._

“You’re going on a _date_ with John Smith!” Jack exclaimed as she finished giving him a brief outline.

“It’s not a date,” River protested with a glare as she chased a rogue piece of tomato around her plate, “We’re just going to see a play.”

“Oh, pur-lease,” Jack retorted with a dramatic roll of his eyes, “He went out and deliberately got tickets to a play you told him you wanted to see and you’re going _just_ the two of you on a Saturday evening! How is that _not_ a date?!”

“It’s not a date,” River repeated, half to herself although even to her own ears it sounded fairly lame.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with dating him anyway?” Jack shrugged as he pushed his plate away with a sigh, “I told you from the beginning, he’s cute.”

River made a non-committal noise as Jack looked up at her with a sly grin. “You never know, if nothing else then you might get a good shag out of it anyway,” he continued as River shifted slightly uncomfortably in her seat, her thoughts drifting automatically back to that exact train of thought from earlier, “He has got _awfully_ large hands!” he added with a wicked smirk as River threw her napkin at him.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, as Jack sat back and cackled at her.

“Ha,” he crowed triumphantly, pointing a finger, “You’re blushing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before River Song!”

“I’m just embarrassed for you that’s all,” River retorted, looking around for the waiter to bring them the bill, "Embarrassed for your terrible idea of conversation."

“Mmmhmm,” Jack grinned at her knowingly, “I’ll believe you sweetheart,” he winked at her, “Thousands wouldn’t!”

River shot him a dirty look as the waiter thankfully appeared and put an end to that line of conversation. She certainly didn’t need Jack Harkness’ scheming in her love life thank you very much.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments, really glad people are enjoying this one. It is a lot of fun to write!


	6. Chapter 6

\---

The following week was, if possible, even busier for River. By the time it was Thursday afternoon, she was in a thoroughly bad mood, especially as she had just had to cancel on Jack that evening in order to get some more work done. She had just finished a phone call with a particularly pernickety colleague and was now feeling almost murderous. Flinging down the paper she'd just picked up, she stood up and headed towards the door. Caffeine, she decided, she couldn't possibly do anything further without any caffeine.

Marching out her office, she headed down to the coffee room for a much-needed cup of coffee before carrying on with any further work. Just as she was turning to leave the room to head back to her office, she almost ran into John who was hurrying in.

“River!” he exclaimed as he pulled up short, stepping deliberately back so he didn’t knock her cup, “I haven’t seen you all week. How are you?”

“Sorry, sweetie,” River sighed apologetically as he smiled back at her, “It’s been a hell of a week.”

John nodded sympathetically at her. “Nearly over though.”

“Yes,” she nodded fervently, smiling back at him as her bad mood from earlier seemed to lift at the sight of his ridiculous grin, “Nearly over, thank goodness.”

They stood smiling at one another for a moment and just as River made to head past him for the corridor, John suddenly called out.

“Oh, I was thinking…”

River turned towards him as he spoke.

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about trying that Thai place that’s just opened on Saturday?” he said quickly, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly as the words rushed out of his mouth, “It’s got some good reviews and I thought we could grab something to eat before the play and…”

He trailed off as River just stared at him.

“Or not,” he added quickly when she didn’t reply, “We could go somewhere else or we don’t have to eat or…”

Closing her eyes briefly, River felt a wave of guilt rush over her. She had completely forgotten about Saturday.

“Shit, John, I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, “It slipped my mind.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine, don't worry,” he said smiling understandingly at her, “I know you’ve been swamped recently. I’ve barely seen you.”

“No, it’s not just that,” River admitted, looking up at him guiltily, “I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to cancel on you for Saturday.”

“Oh,” his expression suddenly fell, “Well, that’s alright. I’m sure you’re very busy and…”

“No, it’s not that,” River interrupted him hastily, trying not to think about how very much like a kicked puppy he suddenly looked, “An old friend of mine is coming to stay this weekend and I thought it was next weekend but I had the dates wrong and he’s arriving this Friday so…”

She tailed off as he stared at her, his hands awkwardly fiddling with his cuffs in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” she added lamely, trying to ignore the sinking feeling of guilt that was settling in her stomach.

“That’s alright,” he swallowed, trying gamely to not look too crestfallen before sticking his hands in his pockets, “I’ll see if Pond is around or something,” he shrugged casually as he glanced up at her through his hair, “We can go another time perhaps?”

She felt a small pang in her stomach as he looked up at her so hopefully. She smiled at him before nodding, “Yes, I’d like that,” she said softly. They stood smiling awkwardly at each other for another long moment before River nodded at the door, “Well, I’d better…”

“Yes, yes, of course,” John replied quickly, moving out of her way, “I’ll see you…around?”

She glanced back at him with a soft smile and nodded before heading back out into the corridor.

Once she was safely back in her office, she sat back in her office chair and sighed loudly, running her hands tiredly over her face.

Damn John Smith and the confusing feelings he brought up in her. And damn her stupidly busy week for making her forget about their… their whatever they were supposed to be doing on Saturday. She still wasn’t sure if it was a date? If John wanted it to be a date? Hell, she didn’t know if _she_ wanted it to be a date. If she was being honest with herself, then he had looked rather disappointed when she’d told him she was busy for a platonic evening out but still…

Glancing down at her desk, she idly played with the snow globe that was still left there from when John was last in her office. She had learnt it was best to give him something safe to play with to prevent permanent damage to some of her more precious treasures.

It was her ex, David who was coming to stay with her this weekend. He’d told her he was coming to stay weeks ago but it had truly skipped her mind until he’d emailed her a couple of days ago to confirm that his flight arrived on Friday. He was the one who’d given her this very snow globe and the one she’d last seen over the summer when they… well, when they’d briefly resumed the more physical side of their relationship. Not that that side of things had ever really been a problem she mused; it had just been everything else. She sighed again as she pushed the trinket away. If only he hadn’t been staying this weekend, that would certainly have made things a lot less complicated.

Sighing loudly again, she briefly closed her eyes and rubbed a hand tiredly over her eyes. This weekend could not come and go soon enough.

\---

“Ooh look River! They’ve got a new fudge shop!”

River rolled her eyes indulgently as David tugged excitedly on her hand and dragged her over to the shop window. It was Sunday morning and he’d insisted they come and have a wander around the indoor market to ‘see what had changed’ since he’d last been here. He’d been excitedly wandering around for the last hour now however and River was slightly keener to find somewhere to have coffee.

The weekend had been slightly more volatile than she’d predicted. His flight had been delayed and he hadn’t got to hers until gone 2am on Friday night. He’d crashed out in the spare room and slept in until lunchtime the following day. They’d then managed a pleasant walk around one of the parks in the middle of Oxford followed by a trip to the pub which had all been lovely. But unfortunaely, they then had an almighty row that evening. It turned out that jet-lag and a few drinks plus some simmering issues from their previous relationship were all a potent mix for a huge row. They’d both yelled at each other, she'd stormed off and he had once again slept in the spare room overnight.

This morning though, they had reached a truce. They’d both apologised and made a concerted effort to be especially nice to each other. Still, it was very different to when she’d seen him last summer when they had essentially just fallen into bed with each other for the entire weekend.

Sighing slightly to herself to clear those thought, River looked around and found him already in the queue inside the shop. Smiling fondly, she shook her head at him as he emerged a few minutes later with a large paper bag in his hand. She shook her head as he offered it to her.

“No thank you, sweetie,” she smiled at him, “How about a coffee though? There’s a nice place just around the corner?”

“Sounds great,” he mumbled through a mouthful of fudge as she tucked her arm through his and led him to a little coffee shop, tucked just around the corner in the market.

Pushing open the door with one hand, River scanned the room for a free table before spying one in the corner. She was just about to lead them both over to it when someone called her name.

“River!”

Turning round, she cursed inwardly when she spotted Amy waving at her from the other corner of the coffee shop. Looking around furtively, she couldn’t see John or Rory or even Jack nearby and mentally heaved a sigh of relief.

“Amy, hello!” she said, walking over to the redhead and introducing David.

“Are you having coffee?” Amy asked, “Join us! We’ve only just ordered.”

“We?” River asked, a sinking feeling suddenly appearing in her stomach as David happily sat down at the table, “Is Rory here as well?”

Amy shook her head innocently, “Oh no, I’m here with John. He’s just gone to the loo.”

Pasting on a smile as Amy grinned at her, River tried to ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach. Damn Amy Pond and her interfering. “Lovely,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“Pond, you won’t believe what I’ve just…” a familiar voice cut through River’s thoughts and she turned around to see John approaching the table, “Oh… hello.”

“Hello,” River murmured softly as he stared at her and then at David, “We just arrived to have coffee and Amy invited us over,” she added unnecessarily as he still stood there.

He shook his head suddenly as if to stir himself and held his hand out to David.

“Hello, I’m John.”

“David, nice to meet you,” the two men shook hands before John sat down opposite River, “Nice bowtie,” David added, nodding at John’s usual neckwear who then straightened it self-consciously before grinning pointedly at River.

“Thanks.”

“So, David, what brings you to Oxford…”

As Amy started to quiz David, River glanced up at John who was watching her from the other side of the table.

“How was the play?” she asked softly after a moment or so when he still didn’t speak.

“Oh, I didn’t go in the end,” he shrugged, looking away from her.

“That’s a shame,” River said, “How come?”

“I wasn’t really in the mood,” he said dismissively, still not quite meeting her eye, “Fancied a quiet night in. It’s been a long week.”

“Oh,” she said awkwardly, “Well, maybe we could go another time?”

“Yeah, maybe…” he muttered non-committedly as he stared at a spot on the table in front of him.

River stared at him for a moment, an irrational feeling of irritation bubbling up inside her at his odd behaviour. She did not need another man acting oddly towards her this weekend. Before she could call him out on it, she was brought back to the conversation at the other end of the table by the mention of her name.

“Yes,” David was saying, “I was telling River the other day that she needs to pack up here and head over to America…”

“Really?” Amy murmured, glancing over at River.

“Oh yes,” he continued, blithely unaware of the glare that River now was now fixing him with, “The research and funding opportunities over there are brilliant and the range of people that you get is just far beyond anything else really. And with the grant proposal River’s just submitted then it’s highly likely that she would be able to come out on a sabbatical from here…”

“I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” River interrupted hastily.

“You’re going to America?” John asked quietly, frowning up at her suddenly.

“No,” River shook her head emphatically, sending a quick glare down the other end of the table, silently cursing David. This had been one of the topics of their argument only last night and she was not particularly keen to rehash it all so soon. “No. This is all just very… very hypothetical.”

“Oh.”

“It probably won’t even happen,” River added, glancing around the table away from John who was now playing with his coffee cup and not looking at her, “Anyway,” she said pointedly, intent on changing the subject, “How have you been Amy? How was that big project at work?”

Half an hour later, River headed back to the table from the toilet. She’d managed to steer the conversation away from the delicate topic of whether or not she might ever leave Oxford in the near future and things had become less awkward from then. She had left John and David talking about physics when she excused herself to go to the loo. She sighed to herself as she ruminated on her bad luck in running into the two of them. She had been hoping to get away with having David here for an entire weekend and _not_ bump into anyone she knew. Unfortunately, Oxford was the kind of place where you always seemed to run into the very person you were trying to avoid.

Hopefully they could leave soon and then she could pack David off to the train station and that would be that for this bizarre weekend. Maybe she would treat herself to an afternoon lying on the sofa in front of the tv entirely by herself. Preferably with a large glass of wine in hand.

Approaching the table, she placed a hand on the back of David’s chair. “Sweetie,” she said, unthinkingly, starting when both men suddenly glanced up at her expectantly, “Oh…I mean, David,” she said hastily, quickly avoiding John’s gaze as he glanced between her and the other man, a look of realisation passing over his face before he pointedly glared down at the table. “We should probably get going if you want to make that train.”

“Oh yes!” he quickly downed the rest of his coffee before standing up and pushing back his chair. He held his hand out to both Amy and then John, shaking their hands enthusiastically, “It was lovely to meet you both.”

“Lovely to meet you!” Amy replied with a wide grin while John mumbled something in reply.

River nodded at them both, “I’ll see you both around soon.” She smiled at Amy and then glanced at John was now fiddling with the sugar sachets in the middle of the table. She hesitated for just a moment before shaking her head and following David out the door. She could only deal with one moody physicist in her life right now and that was that.

\---

A few days later, John found himself sitting in an empty meeting room. He was early for once. Well, technically he had got the time of the meeting wrong and had thought he was going to be late. As it turned out, he was now the first one at the meeting. Leaning back in his chair, he glanced around the room before sighing loudly as nothing interesting caught his attention.

He'd been here in Oxford for just over four months now but at times it felt like he’d been here for years. For once, he wasn’t feeling the mad urge to dash off around the world as soon as he was settled somewhere. Usually he would get itchy feet and start looking up the best flight deals to somewhere exotic as soon as he’d been anywhere for longer than a few weeks. This time, however, it was different. Maybe it was because the Ponds were here, he thought. It had been wonderful to spend so much time with them recently. He’d kept in touch over the years and they had even come out travelling with him for a bit at once point a few years ago. There had been a slight incident in Thailand when Rory had almost drowned, but apart from that they had had a brilliant time together until they had left to settle down back in Oxford.

Now though, they had developed a little routine. He would often head over to theirs at the weekend for a leisurely brunch and sometimes would stay over in their spare room on occasion. They had taken to doing one of the pub quizzes as well on a semi-regular occasion. Jack would now almost always join them and quite often River would as well.

River. He sighed as his thoughts automatically turned towards her. If someone had told him four months ago that he’d be sitting here pondering the enigma of Dr River Song then he would have laughed them out the building.

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed again. Maybe Amy was right and he had been out the dating game far too long. He must have gotten his wires crossed anyway. He had thought that maybe…maybe there was something between them. He’d actually bought the theatre tickets some weeks ago and hadn’t thought anything of it really at the time. When he’d finally worked up the courage to ask her if she wanted to go, it had suddenly seemed like it might be something more than just a casual evening out with a friend. However, she’d then cancelled and spent the weekend canoodling with her annoyingly dashing ex-boyfriend.

He knew River flirted with a lot of people but it had possibly seemed to him that she treated him differently? He’d stupidly even thought that ridiculous nickname ‘sweetie’ was just for him, but then he’d heard her call _David_ that as well he thought sourly. Anyway, he hadn’t really made too much of a fool out of himself before it was too late and they could just be friends from now on. Besides, if she was upping and leaving for America in the near future then there really was no point in getting attached.

Nodding determinedly to himself, he sat forward again. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the latest device he was working on. He was calling it a ‘sonic screwdriver’, not that it was particularly sonic, or terribly effective as a screwdriver actually, although he was still working on that bit. He pulled a small set of Allen keys from his trouser pocket and set to work adjusting some of the settings.

He was so intent on peering at the device in his hands that he barely noticed when someone else came into the room a few minutes later.

“Why on earth are you holding a dildo?”

He gave an undignified squawk and almost dropped the screwdriver on the table, fumbling it with both hands before saving it. He looked up to see River staring at him in amusement.

“It’s not a…a…” he spluttered as he felt his face turn bright red.

“Dildo?” River repeated, tilting her head at him as a grin played around her lips.

“It’s not _that_ ,” he muttered, folding the Allen keys away in his pocket, “It’s a screwdriver actually.”

“Well, I’d say it was certainly going to be screwing something honey,” River murmured suggestively, winking at him as she took a seat at the table.

Putting the offending item safely away inside his jacket pocket, he opened his mouth to protest again when River spoke up first.

“Am I early?” she asked with a frown, glancing down at her watch, “I thought I was going to be late.”

“Errr, no,” he shook his head, “I think they moved the time.”

“Ah.”

River leant forward and poured herself a glass of water as John surreptitiously glanced over at her. He’d not seen her that much in the past three weeks or so. In fact, it was really since Amy’s party that he’d barely seen her. He knew she’d been busy but he couldn’t help but wonder if it was something else as well. Had she been avoiding him? He ran his gaze over her face as she picked up the glass, his thoughts automatically turning back to precisely what had happened between them at the party as he watched her take a long sip.

He must have been feeling especially bold when he’d suggested that they kiss – maybe it was the punch that he’d had to drink - and he hadn’t really expected her to agree, to be perfectly honest. Only she had and then they’d kissed and since then he’d had a slightly hard time thinking of much else despite his very best intentions and all his assertions to himself just minutes ago. He rather frequently also found himself pondering just what exactly she’d been about to ask him just before Jack interrupted them that evening.

River turned to him at that point, abruptly interrupting that particularly dangerous line of thought.

“How have you been?” she asked hesitantly.

Flushing slightly as the images of their kiss refused to completely budge, John shifted slightly awkwardly in his seat.

“Oh, you know, same old, same old,” he replied hastily, shaking his head in annoyance at himself. He didn’t know why he was fixating on a silly drunken kiss really. It didn’t seem like River was so he should certainly try and do the same.

“You seemed like you had a good weekend,” he blurted out before he could stop himself as River looked up at him curiously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, an edge of sharpness in her voice as he dropped his gaze from hers.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, “Nothing. It’s just you and David seemed… well you seemed very…” he waved a hand in front of him as he tried to think of a way to describe the way he’d seen them together at the market that Sunday morning. They hadn’t spotted him but he had seen them when he was on his way to meet Amy. They’d been laughing and joking together outside one of the shops. “…cosy together,” he finished weakly.

River stared at him for a long moment, her head tilted to one side as she bit her bottom lip in contemplation. “We’re old friends,” she said after a pause.

“Just friends? Or friends and something else?” he replied petulantly before he could stop himself.

“I’m not sure that’s really any of your business?” River retorted tersely, a small frown appearing on her face.

John shook his head at himself before rubbing a hand across his eyes. “No, you’re right,” he sighed apologetically, “I’m sorry.”

River nodded slowly at his apology, still watching him curiously.

“I thought you’d have got on you know,” she said after a moment, “Bit mad both of you, almost as clever as you think you are,” she continued as John opened his mouth to protest, “And you’re both physicists.”

John snorted at that. “I know,” he scoffed dismissively, “He’s got some absurd notions about string theory.”

“Oh, is that what you were talking about when I came back from the toilet?” River laughed as the realisation dawned.

John nodded vigorously with a small scowl. “He published this paper last year that’s completely wrong,” he declared emphatically, “I actually wrote a reply. But he wouldn’t acknowledge that he’s wrong at all. Typical arrogant academic.”

River raised an eyebrow at him pointedly. “Yes, doesn’t sound like anyone else does it,” she remarked sarcastically as he spluttered indignantly.

She sat back in her chair and took another sip of water as he muttered under his breath.

After a few moments, he looked up to find her still looking at him.

“Was he being serious?” John asked suddenly, “What he said about you going to America?” he clarified as River frowned in confusion.

She sighed at that and closed her eyes. “No,” she shook her head in frustration, “I don’t know. It’s just a… just an idea that’s all. I’m sure it won’t come to anything.”

John stared at her for a moment, chewing anxiously on his bottom lip. For all his earlier bravado to himself earlier, the idea of River upping sticks and moving to America to be with handsome, spiky-haired David left a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Pushing that feeling aside, he determinedly fixed a smile on his face.

“Well, if it’s good for your career then maybe you should,” he said, trying to sound deliberately cheery and offhand.

River glanced up at him at that, frowning again as he determinedly met her eye and smiled convincingly. She opened her mouth to reply but at that moment the door opened and the rest of their colleagues bustled in for the meeting.

Sitting back in his chair, John let out a breath that he didn’t realise he’d been holding. He was being a good friend that was all, wasn’t he? He was just giving River advice that any friend would give. Nodding to convince himself, he tuned back into the conversation around him as the meeting started, glancing up at River one more time as he did so.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh, for some reason that one was more of a struggle to write! Hope people are still enjoying - do let me know!


	7. Chapter 7

\--

John took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose as he leant back against the wall of the pub. He’d only arrived twenty minutes ago or so but had still made an excuse to come out and get some fresh air. He’d received a message from River earlier that day telling him to come down and celebrate. She had just heard back that the grant proposal she had been working furiously on recently had been approved. According to her message, she seemed fairly relieved, her exact words being ‘thank fuck for that, I don’t think I could have rewritten that thing once more’. She seemed fairly intent on celebrating with intent, he thought to himself with a slight bitterness. He hadn’t actually spoken to her since he'd arrived. He’d spotted her across the bar, seemingly engrossed in a fascinating discussion with that irritatingly handsome postdoc from her department.

John had busied himself getting a drink and then making small talk with some of River’s other colleagues that he knew a little. Amy was supposed to be arriving later but had messaged him to say she was still out for dinner and was running late. He himself had barely seen River for the past month. She had been busy with work but there had also been something that had made him hesitant to seek her out. Whereas only a few weeks ago he would have had no hesitation to go barging into her office several times a week, now he felt there was something holding him back.

He sighed moodily and took a swig of his drink, trying to dispel the nagging voice inside his mind telling him that he was deliberately avoiding her. He might well have been but he certainly wasn't in the mood to acknowledge why.

“There you are,” John looked up sharply as a familiar voice cut through his thoughts. River was stood a few feet away, a glass of champagne in one hand and her hair slightly silhouetted by the light from the window. “I thought you had snuck away without saying hello.”

He shook his head. “I was just…just wanted some fresh air that’s all.”

She nodded before her gaze fell onto the glass in his hand and she frowned slightly. “What _are_ you drinking?”

He glanced down at the lurid pink drink he was holding. “Err, I’m not really too sure. I asked for a gin fizz…”

She snorted slightly in amusement. “I’m not sure I’d trust them to make anything more complicated than a gin and tonic here to be honest.”

He grinned ruefully up at her as he took another tentative sip and grimaced. “I think you might be right.”

“I usually am sweetie,” she grinned back at him, her expression clouding slightly as he winced at the nickname and looked away from her.

“Are we… are you cross with me for some reason?” River asked after a moment or two of awkward silence, frowning at him and tilting her head to one side slightly.

“No,” he replied tersely, unintentionally clenching his fist around his drink, “Why would I be?”

River chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before answering. “I don’t know,” she admitted as she shook her head slightly, “I just, I haven’t really seen you very much and I feel…I feel as if things have been a bit…off between us recently...I was wondering if it was something I’d done or…”

“No, it’s all fine,” he mumbled, looking away from her searching gaze. He certainly didn’t want to have that conversation with her now. “You’ve been busy and I’ve had quite a lot of work on and…”

She continued hesitantly, as if not wholly convinced by his answer. “Ok…good. And, look, I wanted to say I’m sorry that I cancelled our…our date to the theatre. I never really apologised properly or explained and it was just that …”

His head shot up sharply at that and he shook his head dismissively. “Oh, it wasn’t a date,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, immediately regretting it when he saw a look of surprise and then embarrassment cross her face.

“Oh,” River blinked a couple of times before composing herself, “Right, of course. Sorry, I just thought…”

“I mean it wasn’t like a _date_ type of date or anything like that,” he rambled, seemingly unable to stop himself now he had started, “Just like a friends date kind of thing that’s all so…

“Right, yes of course,” River swallowed heavily as he trailed off awkwardly and she looked away from him, staring across the road as she took a sip of her drink.

“Congratulations,” he said after a moment of awkward silence between them, “That’s really good news about the grant. I know you’ve been working really hard on it.”

River let out a long sigh as she glanced back at him. “Thank you. Yes, it is a big relief. I can finally focus on some of other projects I’ve been putting off while trying to get this approved.”

He nodded in understanding before taking a deep breath and asking the question that had been occupying him far more than he would care to admit in the past couple of weeks.

“What you mentioned before,” he asked tentatively, stirring his drink absently, “About going to America…is that now a possibility? With this grant?”

River was silent for a moment before nodding slowly. “They have asked me if I want to go, yes,” she said quietly, her expression hard to read in the dark.

“Oh,” John swallowed heavily. He suddenly felt as if all the air had been sucked from his chest and he couldn’t breathe for a moment.

“For how long?” he managed to ask, hoping his voice didn’t sound quite as nervous as it did to him in his head.

“A year, maybe two.”

He looked away from her and down at his drink before taking a deep breath.

“So,” he asked, willing his voice to keep even, “Do you umm…do you think you’ll go?”

River didn’t reply immediately, instead she still stared out across the pavement, at the odd groups of students and pedestrians who were still milling around the streets at this time of night. Just as he thought she wasn’t going to answer and he was about to repeat the question, she replied, her voice so soft that he had to strain to hear her above the noise coming from the pub.

“I’m not sure.”

“Why not?” he asked hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to hear her answer or not.

She sighed heavily at that, taking another sip of her drink before shrugging. “It’s a big decision. I have a career, friends, a life here…” she gestured vaguely around her before continuing, “I moved around a lot when I was younger. This is one of the first places I’ve ever felt really settled.”

John nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean,” he murmured, half to himself and half to her. He had certainly felt more at home here than he ever had anywhere else in recent years.

“But…” she trailed off, chewing anxiously on her bottom lip.

“But?” he prompted her when she didn’t elaborate.

“It’s a brilliant opportunity,” she admitted with a small shrug, still staring out across the road and not meeting his gaze, “I’d be working with some really eminent people in my field. I’d probably get the chance to head up my own team pretty quickly. Chances like this, they…well, they don’t come along every week.”

John stared at her for a moment, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in the bottom of his stomach at her words. “Well,” he swallowed, “It sounds like you’d be crazy to pass up on it then.”

River looked at him sharply at that as he determinedly met her gaze.

“You think I should go?”

He shrugged back at her. “You said yourself, it’s a brilliant opportunity. Why not?”

She stared at him for a long moment without replying, her expression still difficult to read in the dim light. She seemed to have taken a step nearer to him but he didn’t remember her doing so. Maybe he had moved closer to her. He could almost feel the heat between them she was that near. Could see the way the light danced around her hair and threw shadows across her face.

“I thought…maybe…” she whispered, staring intently at him before trailing off and shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. All of a sudden, she stepped back from him and let out a small, mirthless laugh. Raising her glass to her lips, she drained the rest of her drink in one. “Maybe you’re right,” she declared, a slightly bitter note entering her voice that hadn’t been there before, “What’s keeping me here after all?”

He opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out. He stared helplessly at her for a loaded moment as she shook her head ever so slightly before holding up her empty glass and nodding behind her at the pub.

“Well, looks like I’m in need of another drink.”

With that, she turned on her heel and marched abruptly back inside.

John watched her go before letting out a small groan. He slumped back against the wall of the pub and leant his head back against the brickwork, raising his eyes to the sky as he did so, unable to stop the uncomfortable feeling now swirling in his stomach that told him he was watching his future slip through his fingers.

\---

Two days later, River was down in the basement of the Archaeology building, trying frantically to get some work done in the archives. The new undergraduate term was about to start and she still had a mountain of work to get through before she could even start to think about teaching again. She was also slightly harassed today as she had had a stinking hangover yesterday. The celebratory drinks at the pub had gotten slightly raucous in the end. She hadn’t seen John since speaking to him outside the pub and then Jack had turned up just before last orders, made her down two shots of tequila and then dragged her off to one of the seedier clubs in Oxford to celebrate. She had then spent most of yesterday lurking in her office with the blinds drawn and had slunk off home mid-way through the afternoon to try and sleep off the effects. As a consequence, she was desperately trying to do two days of work in one.

She had also drafted a reply to their American collaborators in the grant agreeing that she would go there for the next year or so. She’d written it this morning but hadn’t sent it. She still wasn’t sure why not. As she had said to John at the pub, it was a brilliant opportunity.

Stabbing her pen violently against the piece of paper she was writing on, she grimaced at the thought of John bloody Smith. What on earth was wrong with her? She wasn’t normally this indecisive about things like this. A traitorous part of her mind piped up that she’d been hoping…well, what had she been hoping? That John would turn around and declare his undying love? Fat chance of that happening. She snorted in disgust at herself. Maybe not that then. He obviously wasn’t that bothered about her sticking around though, she thought bitterly. He’d told her twice now that she should take this opportunity in America. Perhaps she should stop waiting for some unbidden declaration that was never going to come and actually listen to what he was saying.

Nodding resolutely to herself, she determined that she would send that email just as soon as she got back to her office.

She put down the pen and stood up from her desk, looking at the next reference she needed. She was about to head over to the right stack to look for it when a crash followed by a muffled curse startled her.

“Hello?” she called with a slight frown. There wasn’t usually anyone else down here except the Librarian who was normally at the desk outside.

She peered around the stacks of shelves and then gave a sigh of exasperation as John Smith suddenly poked his head around the corner, looking slightly sheepish.

“Oh, it’s only you,” she sighed, as he approached her looking uncharacteristically nervous, “Are you lost?”

“Lost? Err no,” he mumbled before looking around him slightly incredulously, “Are these _all_ archaeology books?”

River rolled her eyes impatiently as he looked around him in surprise. She was not in the mood to deal with either him or his absurd dislike of archaeology today. “John, what do you want?” she snapped a little more curtly than she’d meant to.

“I…ummm, well I… I wanted to speak to you,” he said hesitantly, running a hand nervously through his hair.

Leaning back to perch on the desk, River crossed her arms expectantly as he stopped a few feet away from her, fidgeting even more so than usual. “Well?” she said after a moment when he didn’t continue.

He paused for a moment before turning away to stare at the shelf of books nearest him. “Have you heard of chaos theory?” he suddenly asked, reaching out a hand to run a finger down the spine of one of the books.

River stared at him in complete bewilderment as he glanced up at her briefly.

“Chaos theory?” he repeated as she continued to stare at him mutely, “It’s an area of physics that I’ve always found…”

“Yes, I’ve heard of it John, but what…” River interrupted him, frowning as he carried on regardless.

“Well, it’s quite interesting really. It’s basically about underlying patterns that are apparently random but are all interconnected and how small, insignificant events can have huge impacts on future, as yet undetermined events in…”

“John!” River snapped in exasperation, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes briefly as she took in a deep breath. Honestly, the ability of this man to induce an almost instantaneous headache was unparalleled. “Did you really come down here to talk about chaos theory?”

He lifted his head at that and finally stopped his nervous fidgeting with one of the books. He stared at her for a long moment before opening his mouth and finally blurting out. “Don’t go to America.”

River took in a sharp breath, staring back at him as he gazed anxiously at her. “What?” she managed to reply, not quite trusting her voice to sound steady and hoping that she wasn’t hearing things.

“I mean, you should go if you want to, I don’t want to tell you what to do obviously,” he wrung his hands in front of him as the words suddenly spilled out of him, “But…but I just wanted to tell you…what I should have told you the other night…”

“Tell me what John?” River whispered, her eyes on his as he took a step nearer.

He took a deep breath before replying, his eyes never leaving hers. “You are absolutely infuriating and maddening. Your hair seems to defy all known laws of physics and you use _far_ too much innuendo…”

She gave an indignant snort at that, opening her mouth to protest. But before she could do so, he ploughed on.

“And,” John took another step towards her so he was almost within touching distance, “And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I met you.”

River stared at him almost in disbelief as he gazed at her hopefully. “John, what are you saying?” she eventually whispered brokenly, a feeling of warmth spreading up inside her that she tried to keep a lid on until she was sure he was saying what she thought he was.

“I don’t want you to go to America …” he took a deep breath in as he edged even closer towards her, “I want you to stay here… because…I like you. I _really_ like you and I was hoping you felt the same way but…”

The rest of his sentence was cut off however as River let out a small laugh of delight. Closing the remaining distance between them quickly, she reached up and wound a hand round his neck, pulling him down towards her and kissing him soundly. He made a small noise of surprise but then quickly settled his hands gently on her waist as he kissed her back.

River pulled away after few moments to look up at him, her eyes bright and shining. “Yes,” she murmured against his lips as his sought hers again, “Yes, you daft man, I like you too,” she added with a muffled laugh as he cut off the end of her sentence by kissing her again.

Winding one hand up into his hair as his arms slid properly around her waist, River opened her mouth eagerly to him as he kissed her thoroughly, pushing her firmly back against the desk as he did so.

The sudden sound of voices nearby startled them apart a few moments later. As John took a reluctant step back from her, River stared up at him breathlessly as he ran a hand in vain through his crumpled hair. She reached up to touch her bottom lip automatically, wondering if she looked quite as obviously kissed and dishevelled as he did.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said softly after a moment or two, gazing at her while still trying to catch his breath. River frowned slightly at him as he hastily continued, reaching for her hand as he did so. “What I said the other night…when you asked about our date and I said… it wasn’t true… I _did_ want it to be a date but then…”

He trailed off as River let out a small laugh, shaking her head fondly as she tugged on his hand and pulled him back towards her, ignoring the fact they now weren’t alone. “You’re an idiot,” she grinned up at him as she looped her hands up around his neck and pressed herself against him.

Sliding his arms back around her waist, John returned her grin with one of his own before leaning down to kiss her once more. “Yeah,” he mumbled between kisses, “But, I’m your idiot.”

\--

The following Thursday evening, John and River were in the pub. They were meeting Amy and Rory for the pub quiz and had arrived slightly before them. They had signed up to the quiz and were making a start with the first picture round. Or, at least they were supposed to be doing that. It was quite hard to concentrate on quizzes or pictures or anything else really, John thought absently. Certainly not when River was almost in his lap, one of his hands in her hair and her tongue was doing something truly distracting against his and…

“Oh my god, you two!” Amy’s exclamation cut through the chatter of the pub around them.

Breaking apart breathlessly, they both turned to see Amy approaching their table, eyes agog as she pointed triumphantly at them.

“Ha! I knew it!” she exclaimed as she sat down at their table, “I knew there was something going on between you two!”

Flushing under Amy’s grin, John reluctantly let go of River as she moved to a more appropriate distance from him.

“Ah, hello. Well…umm…” he stuttered as Amy grinned unrepentantly at the two of them, “It’s only been a week.”

“A week!” Amy practically squealed as both River and John winced, “How did I not know until now?” she demanded, “And when, how, what happened?”

River let out a small laugh before getting up from her seat. “I’m going to go and order some food and leave you to this interrogation by yourself I’m afraid sweetie!” she patted John consolingly on the arm as she winked at him and then sauntered off to the bar.

John glared at her in mock outrage as she left him and Amy at the table. He deliberately took a sip of his beer and didn’t meet Amy’s knowing look.

“Sweetie eh?” Amy remarked, her grin growing even wider if possible.

“Oh, shush Pond,” he mumbled into his glass, trying to glare at River who was now stood obliviously at the bar ordering food, but somehow failing to do anything other than send her a very besotted gaze.

Amy laughed as she watched him. “Oh, don’t be embarrassed. It’s about bloody time if you ask me,” she remarked as she took a large swig of wine, “So,” she added as John fiddled with his pint glass, “It’s been a week? Why haven’t you told me until now?”

“Umm, well…it’s been…well… I’ve been a bit busy,” John gestured vaguely with one of his hands, glancing up at River again as his mind drifted automatically to the last week. River had eventually shooed him out of the archaeology archives before they caused a scandal but he’d spent the majority of the weekend at her house, and more specifically in her rather comfy bed. Flushing again as those rather graphic memories surfaced inappropriately, John cleared his throat and looked purposefully down at the table.

“I’m sure you have been,” Amy muttered knowingly before peering at him more closely as he took another sip of his beer, “Oh my god, is that a…a hickey on your neck?” she exclaimed loudly as John suddenly clapped a hand to his neck in mortification.

“No, it’s not, it’s just…it’s…” he fumbled desperately for an excuse while mentally cursing River at the same time. He'd noticed it that morning when getting out the shower at River's this morning and had indignantly pointed it out to River. She had simply shrugged, given him a sly smirk and told him he hadn't complained that much when she'd given it to him the previous night.

Amy laughed at his stuttering and sat back in her seat as she watched him with glee. “Oh, you are so smitten,” she grinned as she shook her head at him.

Finally looking up at her properly, John sighed and then glanced over to the bar where River was standing, a small smile automatically coming to his face as she turned back to face them and grinned at him, “Yeah, well,” he gestured vaguely in her direction, “Can’t help it.”

“You’re not going to go running off any time soon then?” Amy pressed as she picked up her glass again, “This is usually about the time you get itchy feet and disappear off to somewhere exotic.”

John slowly shook his head as he watched River make her way back towards them. “No, no running away this time,” he murmured, half to himself and half to Amy, “Who knows?” he added softly as River settled back down beside him and he laced his fingers through hers, “Maybe we’ll run together.”

\--

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaand this is done. Sorry this one took a bit longer than anticipated. I hope people enjoy the conclusion and thank you for reading and thank you so much for any comments or kudos - they honestly are an absolute delight to receive.
> 
> I do have a one-shot epilogue/sequel to this which is set a little while later that I plan to write at some point so if you are interested then stay tuned!


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